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.

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.

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.

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 NPQ-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.

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HLR Lookup FAQ's

An HLR Lookup returns the information from a network operator’s HLR. Excluding transit time, this query can take between 350 to 2000 milliseconds. Any HLR Lookup service that is significantly faster than this is most likely to have either cached responses or data sourced from MNP databases.
Yes, HLR Lookup has been used this way for many years. It tells you if a network operator is providing service to a given telephone number. However, it can provide a large number of false negatives due to coverage limitations of some suppliers. NPQ-Live overcomes these coverage limitations and XConnect’s Number Validation Service (VAR) is a more sophisticated and cost effective solution for list cleaning.
By default no, customers can configure XConnect’s service in order to tune performance to their needs.
No. Many providers claim that HLR Lookup can provide the reachability status of a subscriber. For example, is the subscriber currently active on the network? Is the phone switch on and available for calls and messages? Network operators do allow these attributes to be visible to parties outside their own network. XConnect is investigating how these attributes can be made available by working directly with mobile operators.
All XConnect’s NPQ services (NPQ & NPQ-Live) provide the current service provider for any given number.  The same can be said for HLR Lookup and MNP Lookup. The differences are that MNP Lookup services, such as XConnect’s NPQ, have higher data accuracy measure and are significantly faster than HLR Lookup. Whereas HLR Lookup services, such as NPQ-Live, are the only viable routing information solutions where intraday porting is highly likely.