HLR Lookup Services: XConnect

In recent years, controls have been introduced to protect networks from fraud and protect subscribers from privacy breaches as well as identity theft. However, using HLR Lookups for legitimate business cases is allowed and is very useful for traffic validation and certain routing.

While roaming status, roamed country, SIM identifiers and subscriber status are now mostly blocked, HLR Lookup still supports number validation and low volume message routing applications.

Use cases:

Routing optimisation for A2P messaging

In most markets, termination fees incur a surcharge if the received traffic is off-net (i.e. a subscriber doesn’t belong to the terminating network and requires forwarding to the correct network). In other markets, off-net messages can simply be dropped. To assure that messages are delivered in a timely manner and margins are optimised, A2P SMS aggregators check number portability records in real-time prior to attempting on-net message delivery (directly to the subscriber’s network).

In the past, the go-to tool for number portability was HLR Lookup, but such services don’t scale well and provide inconsistent results. Most A2P SMS aggregators have migrated to using dedicated number portability services which combine HLR Lookup, Number Range and MNP databases. HLR Lookup remains as the only viable tool for routing in low volume application with a high likelihood of intraday porting.

Data quality management for CRM

Most enterprises place a high value on the accuracy of their customers’ telephone numbers. Managing data quality can include validating customer lead forms in real-time, filtering out fixed line numbers prior to executing an SMS messaging campaign, or regularly performing data cleansing activities. HLR Lookup is an important technique for basic number validation. XConnect’s Live service is powered by XConnect’s Number Range service as well as access to market leading HLR Lookup network providers. HLR Lookup also powers XConnect’s advanced Number Validation service.

Unlike Mobile Number Portability (MNP) queries, HLR Lookups obtain mobile phone connectivity and portability data from MNOs directly and in real time.

How does HLR help with better delivery?

HLR Lookup provides accurate insights into whether a number is active and reachable
Perform basic mobile telephone number validation by checking if a given number is live in a mobile network

Applications:

Reduce fraud in high value transactions by identifying the number is active and hasn’t been recently ported
Accurately deliver voice and messaging traffic
Identify active numbers for high volume call centre traffic to decrease wasted agent resource

XConnect uses multiple sources for HLR access so one of the main benefits of using us is our intelligent routing of traffic to the best provider for a given network.

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Key Features

MCC / MNC Lookup

Provides MCC/MNC for time sensitive applications where intraday porting is highly likely. For example, provisioning SMS messages to new subscribers.

Mobile Number Validation

Perform basic mobile telephone number validation by checking if a given number is live in a mobile network.

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How it works

Most HLR Lookup providers have access to a limited set of network operators. Obtaining complete country access and global coverage requires aggregation of service providers at a network operator level. Moreover, the network access of HLR Lookup providers can be subject to change without notice due to the filtering techniques used by mobile operators to protect their networks and subscribers. XConnect’s Live Status and Live Routing services are powered by a mesh of the world’s best HLR Lookup providers. XConnect aggregates services at a network level and proactively tests each provider’s access on a daily basis so as to ensure the best coverage and consistency. To assure long term stability and service consistency, XConnect has adopted privacy-by-design principles so as to support services with a clear legal basis.

Live Lookup FAQ's

- Our Live services use a real-time query to mobile networks to retrieve information about a Telephone Number (TN).
- Usually, this real-time query is based on a Home Location Register (HLR) query to the mobile network. However, MNO APIs could also be used for certain networks and services.
- There are currently two Live services available – Live Routing and Live Status.
- Live Routing returns the MCC/MNC of the ‘serving’ provider, allowing customers to route correctly and determine the Service Provider currently serving the number.
- Live Status returns the Live Routing information in addition to an indicator of whether the number is currently active on the network.
- Any application which requires the real-time current Service Provider owner and routing information for a number should use Live services.
- Any application which requires knowing whether a number is ‘active’ on the network should use the Live-Status service.
- If the application simply wants to retrieve current ownership and routing information, or wants to check that a number is valid then you should consider using the Number Portability Query or Global Number Range services which are database based and are therefore lower cost, faster and more reliable than Live services.
- Typical use cases for Live services include:
  - SMS delivery - where a customer wants to test whether a message will be delivered before sending to avoid paying for undelivered messages.
  - Testing whether a number is valid, allocated and reachable before communicating with a customer, for example before sending an OTP message, or making an outbound call from a call centre.
  - Data checking – checking whether a list of numbers is valid before a campaign.
- Yes, the Live Routing and Live Status services both include a Number Portability Indicator flag which shows whether a number is ported.
- Yes, the Live services include a check against the XConnect Global Number Range (GNR) database to determine if the number is part of a valid range and has the correct length, before performing the Live number check.
- If, however, the application just needs to check that a number is valid, customers should consider using a GNR query rather than a Live query.
- Yes, the Live services return the Mobile Country Code (MCC) and Mobile Network Code (MNC) of the number. This can be mapped back to the owning network using the XConnect Carrier Identification Code (CIC) list or other industry sources.
- Currently most XConnect Live queries use a mobile HLR query to retrieve information from the mobile network. However, mobile networks are also providing ‘live’ APIs which are not HLR based and XConnect may use these APIs rather than HLR queries where they make sense.
- HLR-based services can be unreliable and are subject to the performance of the mobile network. This can result in networks being unreachable, or incorrect information being returned.
- To mitigate against this, XConnect uses multiple HLR providers, with routing at an MNO level to determine the ‘best’ provider. Additionally, each provider is tested for every network at least once a week and the results published to customers.
- In the event of a failure to an HLR destination XConnect’s systems will detect the failure and attempt to find an alternate route.
- No – live services do not support fixed lines.
- XConnect tries to cover every significant mobile network globally. However, certain networks are severely restricted, and others may be unreliable.
- XConnect publishes a coverage sheet on a network level giving customers an indication of the reachability of each network (determined either by testing or with live traffic statistics).
- No – live services are not cached. Each live service query to XConnect results in a live query to a mobile network.
- Costs are typically ‘per query’ and the cost per query will vary depending on each customers volumes and traffic mix. The XConnect Sales Team will be able to provide an indicative pricing on request.
- Sometimes, due to timeouts, or certain subscriber conditions, an HLR query will fail to return the MCC/MNC of the currently serving network.
- In these instances, XConnect returns the MCC/MNC of the Service Provider that owns the range the number belongs to, according to the national regulator.
- This is indicated by setting NPDI (number portability dip indicator) to ‘False’ in the response, and RC (Reason Code) to 200 (remote query failed to return routing information.
- This applies to both Live Routing and Live Status queries.
- Yes – all queries are charged. XConnect will attempt to retrieve routing and status information in response to any customer Live query. This results in XConnect being charged by the HLR provider whether the query succeeded or not.
- Live services can be queried using HTTP(S) or ENUM and customers can have both protocols if that suits their environment.
- Yes – the customer web portal allows files of up to 100,000 numbers to be processed in a batch, by uploading a simple .CSV file.
- Customers should note that batch processing via the customer portal is deliberately limited to avoid over-loading HLR providers and large batches will take considerable time to run.
- If customers want to run batches of over 100,000 numbers they can either break up the files, or contact XConnect Support who can run larger files more efficiently.
- XConnect offer Live services from all PoPs. Currently PoPs are deployed in:
  - USA – New York
  - Europe – Dublin, Frankfurt
  - Asia – Mumbai, Singapore
- Typically, Live queries can take anywhere from 500ms to 3 seconds to respond.
- Certain networks may exceed even this latency.
- Yes, there are several ways of testing before sign-up:
  - Provide a file of numbers to us which we will test and return the results for.
  - Sign up for a test account which will provide a limited number of queries, allowing you to evaluate the API and service functionality.
- XConnect provides a 24x7x365 helpdesk to handle customer issues.
- Support can be contacted via the customer portal, email or phone.
- Customers wanting to subscribe to the Live service will sign a contract with XConnect which will include the specific terms for the Live service.
- XConnect Sales will work with the customer to complete the appropriate agreements.
- Yes, the customer portal allows single Live-Status queries to be generated from any account.
  - Go to ‘Test and Diagnostics’ and select ‘Single Live Query’, select the Live service and enter a valid Telephone Number.
- If you want to test multiple numbers, contact XConnect Sales who can run a test batch – and even enable the batch processing function to allow self-testing.
- XConnect tries to cover all significant mobile networks with the Live products. However, the nature of HLR queries means that certain networks may be temporarily (or permanently) unreachable and this can change from day to day.
- XConnect’s coverage sheet shows the results of regular network testing, and live traffic reporting to give an indication of current reachability.
- However, XConnect does not block any network, so customers can test reachability even if the coverage sheet shows ‘unavailable’.

What is unique about XConnect’s HLR Lookup service?

XConnect has developed a new HLR Lookup service because many existing solutions had limited coverage, were unreliable and made false claims about their capabilities.

An HLR Lookup service should have consistent coverage and accuracy, be clear about the use-cases it can and cannot support, as well as be professionally supported so that customers can use it with confidence. XConnect’s service is powered by HLR Lookups and XConnect’s proprietary number range data.

Built from the ground up to support the high volume and low latency query requirements of telecommunications carriers.

Offers 24x7 multi-lingual support as standard and our service desk is operated by numbering experts.

Delivered by a team of data sourcing experts
with a singular corporate focus on number information services.