WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission said it had received 5,852 informal complaints regarding the ability of customers to switch telecom providers and keep their telephone number including customers wishing to cut the cord.
“Most of the complaints concern alleged delays in porting numbers from one wireless carrier to another. A much smaller number of complaints, just under 10 percent of the total, involve alleged delays in porting numbers from wireline carriers to wireless carriers,” said the FCC. “At the close of the third 30-day period following wireless local number portability implementation, the total number of complaints had increased to 5,852, about 1,188 additional complaints. This information clearly reflects a downward trend in the number of WLNP complaints being submitted to the commission.”
As of the Jan. 23, the FCC said that 5 percent of the complaints involved customers wishing to replace their wireline service with mobile-phone service.
AT&T Wireless Services Inc., which recently agreed to be acquired by Cingular Wireless L.L.C., is still atop the complaint board with 2,787 total complaints. Cingular is in fifth place with 849. Nextel Communications Inc. had the fewest complaints with 420.
Since each carrier in a porting transaction is noted with each phone call to the FCC’s call center and a disgruntled customer may call numerous times, the actual problems with porting may be much lower.
“The existence of a complaint does not necessarily indicate any wrongdoing by the carrier or carriers named, nor do the complaint numbers reflect the relative number of a carrier’s subscribers attempting to port a number,” said the FCC.
WLNP was implemented in the largest 100 metropolitan service areas on Nov. 24. All carriers are required to be capable of porting as of May 24. Small rural wireline carriers are fighting this requirement claiming that although wireline LNP has been in place for years, they have not received a request to port and so they are not now prepared to begin porting. A lawsuit challenging the requirement is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
