The mobile phone industry is pressing the Federal Communications Commission to force Bell telephone companies to promptly process wireless number porting requests, with cellular carriers claiming they are losing business because of delays and obstacles in moving landline customers to wireless networks.
The controversy is playing out as mobile phones increasingly become substitutes for landline phones. What makes the dustup especially interesting is the largest Bell companies-AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.-own the two largest mobile phone carriers in the United States.
No. 3 and No.4 have a beef
Competing mobile phone carriers typically complete each other’s porting requests in matter of hours, requiring only handful of data fields to be filled in for a wireless customer to switch to another wireless carrier.
Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc., which jointly petitioned the FCC to rule that only necessary validation procedures be utilized for simple ports, claim wireline carriers employ outdated processes that can require more than 100 data fields to be completed.
The wireline-to-wireless porting disconnect represents a major inconvenience for consumers, the No. 3 and No. 4 cellular carriers stated. Delays can also impact cellular operators’ bottom lines and their standing on Wall Street, which hawkishly monitor quarterly subscriber gains and losses.
“Not surprisingly, many consumers simply give up, sticking with a service provider that they otherwise would have left or establishing wireless service using a new number,” Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA told the FCC. “Petitioners have found that while the consumer cancellation rate for intramodal for example, wireless-to-wireless ports is about 5 percent, the cancellation rate for itermodal ports is approximately 30 percent. Through their onerous validation procedures, therefore, incumbent LECs are able to frustrate a sizable percentage of consumers wanting to port their numbers away from the incumbent.”
CTIA backs streamlined proposal
The 1996 telecom act mandated wireline number portability as a means to foster competition. “More than 10 years later, despite clear congressional and commission intent, the benefit of speedy, efficient and simple porting has not been realized by alls consumers,” said cellphone association CTIA. Wireless local number portability, whose implementation mobile phone carriers initially fought, kicked in late November 2003. The wireless industry came to embrace LNP, with wireless-to-wireless porting subsequently emerging as a huge success.
The FCC requires wireline-to-wireline ports to be completed in four days. Wireless carriers voluntarily agreed to process one another’s ports in two and a half hours.
CTIA backs the proposal to reduce the number of validation to four fields: the 10-digit telephone number, the customer’s account number, the 5 digit zip code and a password, if applicable.
Wireline not convinced
The wireline telephone industry claims the wireless sector overstates the wireline-to-wireless porting problem and fails to justify a departure from a process that depends on expert numbering groups to resolve intermodal porting issues.
“[T]he North American Numbering Council and the Ordering and Billing Forum will streamline the porting process even more, and the commission should not circumvent these efforts,” stated the United States Telecom Association.
Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA said public comments belie the wireline industry’s assertion that the existing porting process is largely working.
The two cellular carriers pointed to United States Cellular Corp.’s declaration that nearly 25 percent of port requests to wireless carriers fail. MetroPCS Communications Inc. reported Verizon initially turned away most all of its porting requests during the waning months of 2006.
Unlikely ally
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, a fierce foe of the wireless industry on federal pre-emption matters, backs cellular carriers on wireline-to-wireless porting. “The FCC should immediately act to prohibit onerous and non-standard porting practices as anti-competitive and anti-consumer,” NARUC stated.
The National Association of State Utility consumer Advocates, for its part, said the FCC should balance porting expediency with protecting consumers against unauthorized carrier changes.
