Verizon Wireless President and Chief Executive Officer Denny Strigl said the company will not charge its customers additional porting fees if they want to switch to another carrier and take their phone numbers once wireless local number portability is implemented, which is expected later this year.
“If LNP is something our customers want, it is critical that the process for them is easy, automatic and quick at the customer’s request-both for customers bringing a phone number to us, and yes, for customers leaving us with their phone number,” Strigl said.
To that end, Strigl said Verizon Wireless would not charge a “pre-portability fee” to pay for infrastructure required to implement wireless LNP, and it expects to activate customers switching from other carriers with their original phone numbers in the same time frame the carrier currently uses to activate new customers.
“We will not recover costs in advance of LNP taking effect,” Strigl said. “The substantial costs we have incurred so far in planning for and implementing LNP processes have been included in our general cost of doing business.”
Strigl added that he believes the cost to implement wireless LNP would not be more than 10 or 15 cents per customer per month going forward, and following wireless LNP implementation, Verizon Wireless would evaluate its ongoing wireless LNP costs and how it will recoup the costs.
Industry analysts recently told RCR Wireless News that unless the Federal Communications Commission set guidelines for carriers to follow, some operators could use prohibitive number porting fees and extended time frames for porting numbers to persuade customers from migrating to other carriers once wireless LNP is implemented. The FCC is not expected to release such guidelines until later this summer.
Verizon Wireless noted that it has recently begun accepting applications for 450 positions at a new customer care center in Tennessee that will become the company’s hub for number portability transactions when it begins operations in October.
