Neustar

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Neustar, Inc.
Neustar logo.png
Type of site
Private
Founded1998; 24 years ago (1998)
Headquarters
Sterling, Virginia
,
United States
Key people
  • Charles E. Gottdiener (CEO)
IndustryTelecommunications
RevenueIncrease US$1.2 billion (2017)
Operating incomeIncrease US$209,024,000 (2011)
Net incomeIncrease US$160,823,000 (2011)
Total assetsUS$1,382,638,000 (2011)
Total equityUS$502,634,000 (2012)
Employees1,800 (2012)
ParentGolden Gate Capital
(2017–2021), TransUnion (2021-present)
URLwww.home.neustar

Neustar, Inc., is an American technology company that provides real-time information and analytics for the Internet, risk, digital performance, defense, telecommunications, entertainment, and marketing industries, and also provides clearinghouse and directory services to the global communications and Internet industries. Neustar is the domain name registry for a number of top-level domains, including .biz, .us (on behalf of United States Department of Commerce), .co, .nyc (on behalf of the city of New York), and .in (on behalf of the National Internet Exchange of India).

Until the end of 2018, the company was also a North American Numbering Plan Administrator under behalf of the Federal Communications Commission, a role continued from its founder, Lockheed Martin. Their first contract was granted in 1997 and was renewed under its spun-off in 1999, 2004, and 2012. Since 2019, it has been replaced by Somos, Inc.

History[edit]

Neustar was incorporated in Delaware in 1998. Neustar started as a business unit within Lockheed Martin Corporation. It was spun off to keep the neutrality that was essential to its original core contract with the nation's telecommunications providers.[citation needed] In November 2006, the firm acquired Followap, Inc., a UK-based enabler of mobile instant messaging services.[1]

In 2010, Lisa Hook was named the firm's president and chief operating officer. In January 2010, The Washington Post reported that under Hook's leadership, Neustar was chosen by a consortium of Hollywood studios and technology executives to manage a system whereby consumers could access movies and other video entertainment from multiple digital devices. This system was named "UltraViolet".[2] Over the next years, Neustar acquired several companies: TARGUSInfo (2011), Aggregate Knowledge (2013) and .CO Internet (2014).[3][4][5]

In 2015, Neustar entered into an asset purchase agreement with Transaction Network Services for their caller authentication assets.[6] In the following year, Neustar announced its intention to separate into two independent publicly traded companies.[7] The plans were abandoned later that year when Golden Gate Capital and GIC announced plans to buy out all Neustar public shares for approximately $2.9 billion ($33.50 per share).[8] This acquisition was completed by August 2017.[9]

In 2016, Neustar lost its NPAC contract to Ericsson subsidiary Telcordia. Neustar had administered the number portability system since 1997. The local-number-portability administrator (LNPA) was created to handle the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC), which enables users to take their phone numbers with them when they switch service providers. The NPAC manages the routing of all calls and texts for more than 650 million US and Canadian phone numbers for more than 2,000 carriers.[10]

In July 2018, Charles Gottdiener was appointed as president and chief executive officer, succeeding Lisa Hook.[11] In October, Neustar announced that it acquired Verisign's security services customer contracts. This includes DDoS protection, DNS firewall, and managed and recursive DNS services customer contracts.[12] Three months later, Neustar acquired TRUSTID, a caller authentication and fraud prevention systems provider for contact centers.[13]

In April 2020, GoDaddy announced that it would be acquiring Neustar's domain name registry business. The new service will be called GoDaddy Registry. The deal was expected to be finalized within the next two months.[14] In late 2021, Neustar was acquired by TransUnion for 3.1 billion. However, Neustar's security business, Neustar Security Services, was excluded from the transaction and remained as a portfolio company of Golden Gate Capital and GIC.[15]

Business[edit]

Upon its incorporation in 1998, and continuing until 2015, the original business of Neustar was the administration of the North American Numbering Plan, the maintenance of the system of directories and databases that manage the telephone area codes and central office prefixes in North America. This enables the routing of calls among thousands of competing communications service providers (CSPs). Neustar also provided clearinghouse services to emerging CSPs, including Internet service providers (ISPs), mobile network operators, cable television operators, and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service providers.[citation needed]

Neustar offers internal and external managed Domain name system (DNS) services that play a role in directing and managing traffic in the Internet, cloud-based DDoS attack protection and website performance management tools.[16] Neustar manages the authoritative directories for the .us and .biz Internet domains, and acts as the worldwide "registry gateway" for China's .cn and Taiwan's .tw Internet domains outside of these two countries.[17] Neustar also provides back end registry services for .co Top Level Domain. Neustar manages a collection of these directories that maintain addresses to direct, prioritize and manage Internet traffic, and find and resolve Internet queries and top-level domains on behalf of its enterprise customers. Neustar serves as the provider of registry services and manages directories of similar resources, or addresses, that its customers use for access and connectivity.

Neustar previously operated the authoritative directory for U.S. Common Short Codes, part of the short messaging service (SMS) relied upon by the U.S. wireless industry, and provides solutions used by mobile network operators to enable mobile instant messaging for their end users. CTIA granted that contract to Iconectiv, who took over providing Common Short Code (CSC) Registry Services on January 1, 2016.[18]

Neustar offered a "Digital Rights Locker" for Hollywood studios, consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers looking for Digital restrictions management, such as UltraViolet and the planned Mobile DTV Trust Authority (MDTV) Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC). UltraViolet was shut down on July 31, 2019.[19]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "NeuStar acquires Followap for $139 million". Reuters. November 27, 2006. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02.
  2. ^ Musgrove, Mike (January 14, 2010). "Neustar gets deal to work on movie download anti-piracy system". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
  3. ^ Overly, Steven (October 11, 2011). "Neustar acquires Vienna-based Targusinfo for $650 million in cash". The Washington Post.
  4. ^ Wasserman, Todd (October 30, 2013). "Neustar Buys Ad-Tech Firm Aggregate Knowledge for $119 Million". Mashable.
  5. ^ Murphy, Kevin (2014-03-20). "Neustar pays $109 million for .CO Internet". DomainIncite. Archived from the original on 2015-04-15. Retrieved 2015-04-10.
  6. ^ "Asset Purchase Agreement between Transaction Network Services, Inc. and Neustar, Inc". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. September 9, 2015.
  7. ^ Birkner, Christine (June 21, 2016). "Ad Tech Player Neustar is Splitting Into 2 Public Companies". AdWeek. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  8. ^ "Neustar to Be Acquired for $33.50 per Share in Cash by Group Led by Golden Gate Capital" (Press release). Neustar. December 14, 2016.
  9. ^ "Neustar Announces Completion of Acquisition by Group Led by Golden Gate Capital" (Press release). Neustar. August 8, 2017.
  10. ^ Gibbs, Colin (July 22, 2016). "Report: Ericsson's Telcordia beats Neustar for key number portability contract". Fierce Wireless.
  11. ^ Medici, Andy (July 23, 2018). "The new Neustar has a new CEO — and it's vacating some office space". Washington Business Journal.
  12. ^ "Neustar to Acquire Verisign's Security Services Customer Contracts" (Press release). Neustar. October 25, 2018.
  13. ^ Maake, Katishi (January 4, 2019). "Neustar closes on acquisition of Oregon fraud prevention company". Washington Business Journal.
  14. ^ McCarthy, Kieren (April 6, 2020). "Come to GoDaddy: 12 million domains – from .biz to .nyc – acquired from Neustar amid promises of lower prices". The Register. San Francisco.
  15. ^ Adrien, Claudia (December 2, 2021). "TransUnion Closes Neustar Deal for $3.1 Billion, Excludes Security Business". channelfutures.com. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
  16. ^ "Neustar Second Annual DDoS Survey Finds 35% Of Businesses Experienced A DDoS Attack In 2012". Dark Reading. April 24, 2013. Retrieved December 9, 2013.
  17. ^ Neustar, Inc. (March 25, 2009), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form S-1, retrieved January 1, 2010
  18. ^ "CTIA Announced New Strategic Partner iconectiv for Common Short Code Registry Services" (Press release). CTIA. July 30, 2015. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.
  19. ^ Perez, Sarah (31 January 2019). "Cloud movie locker UltraViolet is finally closing". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-11-11.

Further reading[edit]

  • NeuStar, Inc. (February 29, 2012), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K, FY2011, Form 10-K

External links[edit]

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