By Neil Downing, VP of Products at TMT Analysis.
Knowing When To Use Number Portability or HLR Lookup
When you use a particular term all the time, it’s easy to forget that the person you are talking to might not have the same understanding that you do. A recent discussion at a conference with a potential customer about their need for Home Location Registry (HLR) queries revealed that actually, they didn’t necessarily need HLR at all, and our Velocity Number Portability (NP) product is even more suitable. Number Portability checks use our own database, which depending upon the country is updated every day with new porting movements. If your use case is to find the correct network to send a voice call/SMS message to, taking user movement between networks into account, then a simple NP check is cheaper, faster (because it uses on-net data) and can even be more accurate.
Many customers see HLR as being more accurate because it is a ‘live’ check, but this might not always be the case, as data can be cached and depending upon the country HLR may not always be available for every network operator. But, if you are looking for other attributes such as live status or roaming status, then it is absolutely the right technology.
As ever, it’s our job to give people the best advice that we can, and if you are curious about what the best technology is for you, you can sign up for the TMT Analysis portal free of charge and see what the response for both the Live (HLR) and Velocity (NP) against a given number are. Or, speak to one of our team who’d be happy to help!
Speak to us today about how TMT Analysis can help your business info@tmtanalysis.com.
