An organization of GSM players has announced the availability of a global number portability service that will provide an interoperable, industry-wide solution that enables the routing of global IP service interconnect traffic.

The service, called PathFinder Number Portability Discovery, will be managed by the GSMA (GSM Association) but it will be operated by Neustar, a provider of clearing house and directory services that allow communication across networks, applications, and enterprises around the world.

Designed as a state-of-the-art solution for global number portability, the new service encompasses 2.2 billion telephone numbers that are impacted by number portability worldwide, a figure which is expected to rise rapidly.

Number Portability is currently implemented in over 52 countries globally, with many more, including China and India, expected to launch by the end of 2010. The service will also aggregate numbering plan data from virtually every country in the world, including those with high number portability penetration.

“The GSMA’s PathFinder Number Portability Discovery service provides critical numbering plan and number portability information that dynamically enables service providers to identify the true destination network for accurate routing,” Alex Sinclair, chief technology and strategy officer at the GSMA, said in a statement.

“The service will help eliminate incremental fees, reduce costs, optimize rates in commercial agreements, improve traffic delivery and pave the way for new feature-rich IP-based services,” added Sinclair.

The new service will make use of PathFinder’s extensive number portability database, which provides access to all national numbering plans and number portability information, where available, throughout the world.

With adaptable and extensible interfaces, the service can rapidly incorporate new number portability data for countries coming on line or that plan to implement number portability in the future.

The service makes it simple for carriers, service providers and hubs to improve their voice, SMS and MMS commercial/technical performance in the presence of number portability challenges, while providing a convenient upgrade path to next generation IP services that require number portability correction.

Customers who subscribe to industry port corrected data from the PathFinder Number Portability Discovery service can seamlessly incorporate richer service delivery data, provisioned for the destination networks.