Following on a Federal Communications Commission inquiry into its local number portability implementation, AT&T Wireless Services Inc. filed a report with the agency outlining the troubles the carrier has encountered with the LNP mandate, as well as the steps it has taken to fix the issues that had resulted in some customers waiting more than a week to have their wireless numbers ported in or out from the carrier.
The FCC inquiry stemmed from LNP-related consumer complaints the government agency released last week showing AT&T Wireless garnered 332 complaints filed against wireless carriers during the first weeks of LNP implementation. Verizon Wireless received the second-highest number of LNP-related complaints with 129, followed by 98 complaints filed against Cingular Wireless L.L.C., 94 against Sprint PCS, 46 complaints filed against Nextel Communications Inc. and 44 filed against T-Mobile USA Inc.
In its report, AT&T Wireless admitted to difficulties in its LNP processes, which it attributed to a combination of factors, including technical limitations in its clearinghouse vendor’s systems and insufficient inter-carrier testing prior to the Nov. 24 LNP deadline.
“These factors resulted in significant delays in processing both requests that [AT&T Wireless] received from other carriers to port out and requests that [AT&T Wireless] issued to other carriers to port in numbers,” the carrier said in a letter to FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief John Muleta.
AT&T Wireless explained that its LNP vendor Nightfire, which is an affiliate of NeuStar, ran into difficulties when problems with its system produced delays in each step of the porting process that eventually created a “considerable backlog of port-out requests.” Those problems included taking too long to verify and submit the port requests to AT&T Wireless for customer validation, which eventually led to the carrier “routinely” responding to requests after the “due date” and “time” of the port request had expired and a resulting “resolution required-due date expired” response to porting requests.
AT&T Wireless also said the Nightfire system delayed transmitting responses back to the requesting carriers. The carrier said this was compounded by glitches in the Nightfire interface used by its porting agents to resolve the porting issues, which caused additional delays in resolving the backlog.
NeuStar defended its service, noting the initial issues were “primarily with the capacity of the system setup,” and not any fundamental problem with its software. The company added that it brought in additional resources, including faster systems, additional systems and additional capacity, to deal with what it termed unprecedented and unexpected volume.
“Things are now working,” NeuStar said.
Beyond its own LNP issues, AT&T Wireless added that the insufficient testing with Telecommunications Services Inc., the vendor most of the other wireless carriers selected for their porting services, was the result of two software upgrades TSI performed within the last four weeks prior to Nov. 24 that “shut down critical inter-carrier communications testing.”
In addition, AT&T Wireless claimed TSI’s software was designed to reject port requests with “due dates” outside of the Number Portability Administration Center’s business operating hours even though the carriers agreed that porting requests made outside the NPAC’s 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. operating hours would occur on an automatic basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
TSI refused to comment on any carrier-specific problems, but said it was working on resolving any porting problems.
“We are working closely with all the other clearinghouses to resolve any inter-carrier clearinghouse issues that come up,” said a TSI spokeswoman. “There are daily industry calls between clearinghouses to resolve any issues.”
AT&T Wireless added that as soon as it identified the problems it “devoted substantial resources to solving them, prioritizing resolution of port-out requests over resolution of [AT&T Wireless’] own port-in requests.”
The carrier added that it has worked closely with NeuStar to facilitate the corrections resulting in AT&T Wireless’ ability to respond to more than 90 percent of the backlogged port requests, its ability to respond to port requests within Wireless Intercarrier Communications Interface Specifications guidelines, and specifically responding to port requests with a valid response within 30 minutes greater than 75 percent of the time. Despite the carrier’s attempts to solve the LNP problems, analysts noted that a combination of its LNP-related issues and its previous software problems that hindered the carrier from signing up customers to its GSM-based network, AT&T Wireless could miss fourth-quarter customer growth forecasts or post a high mix of TDMA customer additions at a time when the carrier is trying to shift network traffic to its lower-cost GSM network.
“Avoid [AT&T Wireless],” American Technology Research wireless analyst Albert Lin warned investors.
Analysts also noted that the industry LNP problems extend on a certain level to all carriers as shown by the number of complaints filed with the FCC, and it could have been much worse if not for the lower-than-expected turnout through the first couple of weeks of customers looking to port their numbers to new operators. Instead of the millions of potential customers looking to switch carriers in the first weeks of LNP, industry estimates place the actual number at around 500,000 total customers and between 50,000 and 80,000 customers per day.
“Despite this light volume, the wireless industry has once again shown its ability to let people down,” said Bob Egan, founder and president of Mobile Competency.
Others noted the slow turnout could be the result of customers holding off on number porting due to the rash of war stories being reported from people who have attempted to switch carriers.
“With a reported [80,000] ports per day, the impact from LNP looks to be lighter than anticipated-although we believe the voluminous porting problems reported in the press have temporarily discouraged many potential switchers from making the change,” said SG Cowen telecom analyst Thomas Watts.
Beyond the problems associated with switching carriers, Mobile Competency’s Egan also pressed the FCC to force carriers to stop billing customers for service once they take specific action to port their numbers, noting customers are likely to see up to a 20-percent increase in service costs during the porting process as both their new carrier begins the billing cycle and old carrier continues to bill until the port is complete.
“As it stands now, subscribers are essentially being taxed on the shear lack of readiness and operational incompetence of the wireless-operator environment,” Egan said.
Carriers have acknowledged the potential double-billing issue, but provided mixed answers on how they are dealing with the possibility.
Verizon Wireless said it’s providing “courtesy compensation” on a case-by-case basis for customers whose porting-in process takes longer than anticipated, while customers porting out are billed for as long as they use the service.
Sprint PCS and T-Mobile USA have attempted to reduce the double-billing possibility by allowing customers porting in to the carrier to make only E-911 or customer-care calls from their handsets until just prior to completion of the porting process.
