Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Yet More on Cellular Number Portability

Posted by michael on from the churn dept.

RadBlock writes "The Wireless Supersite has posted an interesting column analyzing number portability. Wireless carriers have been stalling on the availablity of number portability for years now. The final deadline is supposed to be in November, and it will allow you to keep your wireless phone number when you change carriers (one number for life... the ultimate!)"

26 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. well, to each their own by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    one number for life... the ultimate!

    I would say sex with twins is the ultimate, but hey, we all have priorities.

  2. And yet, by llamalicious · · Score: 4, Interesting

    sometimes I look forward to leaving certain phone numbers behind.

    Once someone knows your number, changing it's the only way get it away from them. Can't really block any single person from fucking with your phone number, they can always call from a different place.

    Sounds like just another way to add a surcharge to our phone bills. Like we need another.

    Wow, must be Friday, I'm bitter and sarcastic... time for beer and wings!

    1. Re:And yet, by ckuhtz · · Score: 3, Informative
      LNP is an option for those who want it, not something that will get forced on you.

      If you want to keep your number, cool.. LNP provides for that. If not, cool, here's your new number and your old one goes back to the pool.

      Get the facts straight. Oh, wait, this > is a thread /.

      --

      Poof.
  3. Why is LNP such a big deal for cellular? by ckuhtz · · Score: 5, Informative
    LNP resistance in the U.S. is marketing FUD.

    Other countries are already doing this for a year or two now. Take Germany. The carrier is allowed to charge you a fee (something like 25-50 euros), which often gets comp'ed by the new carrier.

    This has nothing to do with technology. It's solved. It's carriers trying to keep customers hostage. Nothing more.

    --

    Poof.
  4. Re:Does it really matter? by MoOsEb0y · · Score: 4, Insightful

    True, but you have to pay for those. If the wireless companies could cooperate, you wouldn't have to pay for this. Maybe that's why they aren't cooperating.

  5. The Ultimate? by slagdogg · · Score: 4, Funny

    one number for life... the ultimate!

    It's only the ultimate if you get a cool number ... like (663) 244-7467 ... aka (ONE) BIG-PIMP

    --
    (Score:-1, Wrong)
    1. Re:The Ultimate? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Funny
      I swear to God, I'm not making this up:

      My old data line was 833-8258 - 83FUCKU. When my wife and I got married, she called our telco to see if we could keep the number, but we were moving to a different part of the city and get to get a different prefix. She told the operator that was too bad, because we had this really great number that spelled...

      The operator panicked. She called her supervisor, who also panicked. The pulled all numbers containing "38258" from national (well, regional, I guess) circulation, which they apparently do for all numbers known to spell something bad.

      I felt kind of bad for causing that to happen. It was a good number.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:The Ultimate? by SeanAhern · · Score: 3, Funny

      I felt kind of bad for causing that to happen. It was a good number.

      I was calling the operator on the phone, and it was like beep beep beep beep beep. And then, like, my number was gone. And I like... hnnng? They devoured my number. It was a really good number. And then we had to get a number in a different prefix and it wasn't as good. It's kind of a..... bummer.

      1-987-LN-FEISS

  6. Re:Does it really matter? by James_Duncan8181 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just move to the UK, we've had this for a couple of years largely because we have a regualtor with teeth...

    --
    "To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
  7. That's exactly why cell companies don't want it by FearUncertaintyDoubt · · Score: 5, Insightful
    One of the big reasons to not switch your cell phone company is that you lose your number, and have to deal with changing over to a new number.

    If I could keep my number, my incentive to stay with RipOff Cellular goes down, and I'm more likely to switch to UselessMinutes Wireless Inc.

    In the end, there's probably just as many people who want to switch from A to B as want to switch from B to A. But even though the numbers of subscribers might remain fairly steady, it is more expensive to lose one customer and gain another than to just keep one.

    1. Re:That's exactly why cell companies don't want it by ckuhtz · · Score: 3, Insightful
      One of the big reasons to not switch your cell phone company is that you lose your number, and have to deal with changing over to a new number.

      Exactly, not having number portability is anti-competitive. They're trying to protect their cartels.

      --

      Poof.
  8. One number by Nikkos · · Score: 5, Funny

    "(one number for life... the ultimate!)"

    One number to find you.
    One number for life.
    One number for the world to call
    And in the darkness (and light, and evening, and morning) bind you.

    Nikkos

  9. WHAT AM I PAYING FOR, THEN? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For the past four or five years, an increasing number of nickel-and-time charges have been appearing on my phone bill... every time I'd ask Verizon about it they would say basically "The FCC made me do it."

    Well, one of those numbers was supposed to be specifically to provide phone number portability if I change carriers.

    So if I'm not getting phone number portability, why am being charged for it?

  10. Re:Does it really matter? by binaryDigit · · Score: 3, Informative

    If the wireless companies could cooperate, you wouldn't have to pay for this

    Actually one carrot the FCC is dangling in front of the telcos is allowing them to charge you a fee for keeping your #. I personally think this is a reasonable compromise.

  11. More Options Are ALWAYS a "Good Thing" by SUB7IME · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have noticed that some people are complaining, "But if I always have the same phone number, then I can't avoid all those pesky telemarketers/ex-girlfriends/stalkers/parents/lawy ers/etc."

    What these people are ignoring is that you merely have the choice to keep the same number - not an obligation. If it behooves you to keep the same number, you may do so; if not, you can drop the number just like you do now.

    Giving the public more options is a "Good Thing."

  12. Re:perhaps a good idea by ckuhtz · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think having a number would be cool, but there are other implications. Imagine the privacy concerns of not changing your number

    What the heck does a number have to do with privacy?!.. Put down the crackpipe.

    Another issues is routing of the call and how much more work this would add for the phone company that they would be willing to charge you more for. In my opinion they charge to much already. It's already solved. Has been for years. Called LNP. It's not technology, it's fear and anti-competitive notions.

    Why do you think providers love the heavily fragment market of CDMA, TDMA, CDMA PCS, TDMA PCS, Sprint PCS, iDEN & GSM in the U.S.? Switching is hell.

    Why do you think U.S. lags behind in wireless growth?

    --

    Poof.
  13. Would it help stem the need for more numbers? by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We've gone through two area code splits here in Minneapolis -- 612/651 first, and then 768/612/952 later.

    Would cell number portability slow this kind of thing down? I can't help but think that each cell provider switch ties up two numbers for at least a month or so as one number gradually expires and gets put back into the re-use bin.

    With this there'd be more slack in the system as providers wouldn't need as much of a supply of numbers for new customers, as some (high?) percentage could be expected to keep their numbers.

  14. Re:Does it really matter? by gpinzone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, but since it's the UK, I'll bet those are really crooked teeth.

  15. One Number For Life? by handy_vandal · · Score: 4, Funny

    "... (one number for life... the ultimate!)"

    Not good enough. The true ultimate number would last into the afterlife. That way, we could call dead people, and not have to remember a special post-mortem phone number.

    Much superior to the old postal method of contacting dead people, via the dead-letter office ....

    --
    -kgj
  16. Uhhh.. by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...the European cell network is great because of this kind of crap?

    I don't care how cool your GSM network tech is or how easy it is to roam from Spain to Syria, if you have to put up with this kind of BS billing game it's not worth it...

  17. Keeping your number by Musashi+Miyamoto · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I suppose the cellular providers are worried that customers will jump ship to competitors if they were able to keep their phone numbers. But, when the customers switch, they switch to OTHER cellular providers.... which means that non-customers are just as able to switch TO thier company.

    The only valid concern I can think of is that preventing users from keeping their number is that they keep their revenues consistent. If users switched all the time, they wouldn't be as able to dependably predict the next quarter's revenues. Though, I doubt it would fluctuate that much. It leaves them open to being overtaken by better competitors, but it equally allows them to steal away the other guy's users. (I guess they don't have much self-confidence)

    That is like saying "buying" is bad and "selling" is good, when they are just two sides of the same transaction.

  18. Welcome to routing problems with your phone by asmithmd1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Recently the company I work for changed from the ILEC to a CLEC that only provided service within our LATA, of course we wanted to keep our existing number. Certain other people were not able to call in, we could call out but they couldn't call us, it turns out companies that used MCI as their IXC were the ones who couldn't call us. MCI had a problem with their LIDB. You are going to need to know this stuff to diagnose these problems. And you think service is bad now

    --
    Free cell phone tracking
    1. Re:Welcome to routing problems with your phone by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Informative

      For those of you who don't like acronyms:

      His company used to get their phone service from the normal big bad evil Baby Bell phone company (ILEC). Then they switched to a smaller local carrier (CLEC) that was able to give them cheaper phone service, and stopped dealing with the ILEC (the CLEC still has to deal with the ILEC because the ILEC owns the phone lines, unless the CLEC can get permission from the city to dig up the streets and run their own lines, or whatever, but that's really expensive).

      However, MCI's phone number database (LIDB) didn't have the correct information for the CLEC, so people that were using MCI as their long distance provider (IXC) couldn't call them. Calling from his company to the other people worked fine, since that doesn't rely on MCI's LIDB.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  19. Re:perhaps a good idea by laymil · · Score: 4, Informative

    you're a very confused person when it comes to wireless tech.

    of the list of wireless standars you list, at least 3 of them are made up, or bastardizations of ones already on the list.

    Why do you think providers love the heavily fragment market of CDMA, TDMA, CDMA PCS, TDMA PCS, Sprint PCS, iDEN & GSM in the U.S.? Switching is hell.

    Lets see. PCS stands for Personal Communications Services. CDMA PCS==CDMA TDMA PCS==TDMA Sprint PCS==CDMA. iDEN works over TDMA. So, you list 7 different cellular network types. I'm telling you there are really only 3 in the US. Unless you want to count plain old analog cellular.

    Thanks for playing.

  20. Re:One number for life free is already available. by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sounds interesting. What do you get for referring customers, sorehands? Or should I call you "refer_id=5938p911"?

  21. Re:Delaying the inevitable? by GlassHeart · · Score: 3, Informative
    The cel companies should employ modern network standards along the lines of IPv6, DHCP, and ZeroConf.

    IPv6 is an addressing and routing scheme to extend the number of nodes on a network. I fail to see how this applies to cell phones, each of which already has a unique routable address. No, it's not the phone number.

    DHCP is used to configure a node. Some new cell phones are already configured over the air today.

    ZeroConf is used to discover services. I have no idea why you think this will apply to a cellular network.

    When you turn on your phone you're on the network.

    What do you think happens today? Do you have to log on? Provide a password? Talk to an operator?

    Who else is on the network? Your phone tells you.

    A million other people are on the network.

    Want to call someone? Select their name from your buddy list.

    I've been doing that for years. It's a bit tedious to enter the data in the first place, but with vCards over IR or Bluetooth, it'd be quite trivial.

    All this archaic ten-digit dialing, ringing, answering, messaging is all going to seem very quaint in ten years.

    I don't do ten-digit dialling today, so that's not worth discussing.

    Ringing? How else does a phone tell you that somebody wants to talk to you? (I'm including "vibrate" in the same category.)

    Answering? This is when you start the connection. In the future it might not involve pressing a button, but certainly you will have to answer your phone somehow.

    So I'm afraid I don't really know what you're talking about.