WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission last week unanimously granted a request
from the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association to extend until Nov. 24, 2002, the deadline for
implementing local number portability.
Portability allows customers to keep their telephone number when switching
carriers. The FCC has maintained local number portability is necessary for competition to develop.
The wireless
industry, by contrast, has maintained it already is competitive and the money spent to implement wireless number
portability could be put to other uses. Indeed, CTIA President Thomas Wheeler said in a statement released in New
Orleans at Wireless ’99, the decision “underscores the FCC’s understanding that the wireless industry already is
the most competitive segment of the telecommunications marketplace. Wireless carriers can continue building and
improving their services for consumers, without diverting resources to implement number portability.”
The
November 2002 date is the same as the sunset date for resale obligations and represents the end of the buildout
requirement for personal communications services carriers.
The FCC stressed its decision doesn’t relieve wireless
carriers from implementing WNP; it just delays the deadline. Indeed, Tom Sugrue, chief of the FCC’s Wireless
Telecommunications Bureau, told a Wireless ’99 public policy panel, “We expect the industry to make progress
on [WNP]. One concern is that this grant [of forbearance] not be an occasion for the industry to drop the
issue.”
CTIA in December 1997 asked the FCC to forbear from enforcing WNP deadlines. The wireless
bureau first delayed the implementation of wireless number portability until March 31, 2000, but did not act on the
forbearance request. Congress established procedures in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allow entities to ask
the FCC to “forebear” from enforcing rules that have become moot due to competition. The procedures
require the FCC to rule on such requests within one year, but give the agency the option of a 90-day extension, if
necessary.
The WNP issue is slated to be debated in May before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Bell
Atlantic Mobile has led the industry in a legal effort to overturn the wireless number portability rules. BAM argues
Congress did not intend for the wireless industry to be subject to portability when it included the requirement in the
telecom act. The FCC disagrees, but has said it will be more technically challenging for the wireless industry to
implement number portability than it will be for the wireline industry.
It has not yet been decided whether BAM
will drop its appeal in light of the FCC’s decision, said S. Mark Tuller, BAM vice president for legal and external
affairs, general counsel and secretary.
