WASHINGTON-Even as reports of wireless carriers being close to running out of telephone numbers reached the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC began reviewing comments on additional regulatory measures to help with number conservation.
Large wireless carriers-like AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Sprint PCS-are running out of numbers. “There is just a huge demand for numbers … I don’t know that we could have predicted [the shortage of numbers] … This will get worse before it gets better,” said AT&T spokesman Ken Woo.
Sprint PCS recently asked the FCC for numbering relief. It is something the carrier has had to do before. The issue is larger than just Sprint, it is like the “like the canary in the coal mine,” said Jonathan Chambers, vice president for regulatory affairs for Sprint PCS.
Next to spectrum, phone numbers are the lifeblood of wireless carriers.
But unlike spectrum, which only wireless carriers use, telephone numbers are used by every type of telecommunications carrier for services ranging from plain old landline to telematics in automobiles.
“Numbering shortages hurt the wireless industry because we are new and growing rapidly. That combination means that in states where rationing is in place, wireless carriers can be hurt,” said Chambers.
The FCC in March adopted new rules for number conservation that largely exempted wireless carriers, but asked a number of questions, including how soon after Nov. 24, 2002, should wireless carriers be subject to local number portability.
While at least one state, Maine, and one large long-distance carrier said there should be no delay, the Personal Communications Industry Association said it could take more than three years to implement LNP after 2002.
There was also a difference of opinion on how many numbers a carrier must use before it can request additional numbers.
The FCC has tentatively proposed that the threshold begin at 50 percent, but escalate by 10 percent increments until it reaches 80 percent. Maine said it should be at least 75 percent. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association called for 50 percent.
The General Services Administration-the federal government agency responsible for coordinating office locations, supplies and services, including telecommunications-said there should not be a nationwide threshold, or fill rate.
“Fill rates depend more significantly upon the types of areas that the carrier serves and the length of time that the carrier has been providing service than upon how efficiently the carrier uses numbering resources,” said the GSA.
PCIA agreed with the GSA. “PCIA submits that it would be overly difficult, if not impossible, to select a national and nondiscriminatory `one-size-fits-all’ utilization threshold if that threshold is the sole basis upon which applications for additional numbering resources are evaluated,” said PCIA.
The FCC did not seem to get much support for the idea of charging for phone numbers. FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth has said he finds “it a little bit ironic that we are having such a difficulty in coming up with funding for universal service when we have in front of us a resource that could ultimately be used as a funding mechanism for universal service.”
