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Messaging infrastructure

MNP (Mobile Number Portability)

Qu'est-ce que MNP (Mobile Number Portability)?

Cette entrée n'est actuellement disponible qu'en anglais.

MNP (Mobile Number Portability) is the regulatory mechanism that lets a mobile subscriber move an MSISDN from one carrier to another while keeping the same phone number, decoupling the number's digits from any one network. Routing by prefix alone breaks once a subscriber ports, so carriers and CPaaS providers consult an MNP database or registry — queried by HLR or number-lookup — to determine which network actually hosts a number today rather than trusting its prefix.

More detail

MNP regimes differ by country: North America relies on a centralized Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), while most European and Asian markets mandate carrier-to-carrier porting supported by per-country MNP databases — so a lookup that uses the original carrier's routing prefix can misroute a ported number.

Orbit's inbound-ported numbers land on the Devotel wholesale fabric, which routes traffic to the newly ported number directly without its own donor-carrier dip; for a destination mobile number, the /numbers/lookup endpoint returns `ported: true` plus the current carrier's MCC/MNC and a `mnp_original_carrier` name so an outbound campaign doesn't trust the stale route.

Questions fréquentes

Why can prefix-based routing guess the wrong carrier after an MNP port?
The subscriber's original carrier assigned the MSISDN from a block tied to its own prefix. Once the subscriber ports, that prefix still implies the original carrier, but current traffic must reach a new recipient's network — a routing table that never refreshed the port events lands the message on the wrong carrier and usually fails.
How is MNP different from plain number porting?
MNP is the regulatory machinery for the subscriber-level mobile-number port itself; plain 'number porting' covers the broader concept of moving any phone number between carriers, including toll-free and wirelines. Orbit's /numbers/porting flow handles the reduced one-to-one port; MNP is the mechanism whose existence makes the lookup stack worth querying for outbound sender.

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