Federal Communications Commission’s (Commission)
Number Resource Optimization Policies
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The Commission has mandated the way in which all telecommunications service providers (including
cellular, paging, resale and competitive providers), across all states, manage the assignment of
numbering resources needed to compete in the rapidly growing telecommunications marketplace.
Please read below to understand the rules and the overall impacts to you.
 1st Report and Order FCC 00-104 (3/31/00)
Customer telephone numbers are impacted with the new rules on “assigned and reserved” telephone
numbers. The Commission allows carriers to reserve telephone numbers for customer requests for a
45-day period.
All carriers are required to submit a report to the NANPA/Commission twice a year to show the status
of all telephone numbers under the carrier’s control by proving:
1) Months-To-Exhaust - that telephone numbers will be exhausted in a given rate center,
and
2) % Utilization - that the carrier will have reached the required percent exhaust level for
that given rate center
SBC must meet these two criteria in order to request additional numbering resources from the North
American Numbering Plan Administrator (NANPA) for its customers. The Commission also requires carriers
to classify telephone numbers into six categories: Assigned, Administrative, Intermediate, Aging,
Reserved and Available.
SBC customers are impacted depending on how SBC classifies the telephone numbers as
either “assigned” or “reserved”. The 2nd and 3rd Report and Orders further explain.
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2nd Report and Order (12/29/00)
The Commission extends the limit on how long a carrier can hold a telephone numbers for a
customer in reserve status to 180 days. This means that, telephone numbers in reserve status are
required to be installed and working in the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) by the end of
the 180-day period. Beyond 180 days, if the telephone numbers are not working in the PSTN, then
telephone numbers are no longer deemed “reserved” and are made available for assignment to other
customers.
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3rd Report and Order (12/28/01)
This Order made the following changes:
 For POTS telephone numbers there is a new option that if the number is working 90days out of a
calendar year, the number can be considered in the PSTN or Assigned for the remainder of the year.
 For Centrex and PBX/DID customers, there is a new option that allows carriers the opportunity to
implement the 50% threshold on reserved telephone numbers greater than 180 days. If customers
have 50% of their Centrex common block working in the PSTN, meaning "Assigned", then the entire
common block is automatically considered "Assigned".
 This means the CTX customer does not have to give up any of their reserved numbers in
the common block. However, if the customer falls below the 50% threshold, the customer
must choose one of several options in order to be at the 50% threshold.
 How SBC can assist Customers to get to the 50% threshold
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SBC can assist you to Identify your reserved telephone numbers
SBC can assist you identify which numbers you no longer need and return them to SBC
SBC can assist you identify which numbers you may want to activate through any of the three
options:
 activate them as working Centrex stations
 activate them as additional appearances on ISDN or (DMS100) Meridian Business phone
sets
 activate them as any other SBC offered product or feature that provisions the number to work
in the PSTN