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Cell Phone Number Portability Ruling
Ken@WearableTech writes "Checking the Court's Opinion site every day has paid off. Verizon's action on the FCC's number portability ruling was dismissed by the D.C. Court of Appeals. The court found that Verizon had waited far too long to bring the challenge and it also sided with the FCC's interpretation of the Law rather than Verizon. Barring any other action we may see number portability this year. Unfortunately, Verizon is already lobbying to have the law changed. But it was also nice to see Cingular was on the FCC's side of the case."
I don't understand why they are complaining about the costs of this--they are just passing it on to their customers anyway. And, perhaps most annoyingly, they don't pass it on to the consumers in the price of the calling plans, they tack it on as a "surcharge" (the government lets them do this). Imagine going to Wal-Mart, and when you pay for your purchase you are not only charged tax, but you are charged an explicit surcharge for the various fees arising from government mandates that they had to incur.
From the article:
"Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, said he opposes another delay because wireless companies already collect customer surcharges for both the number portability and 911 efforts."
All of their arguments seem very disingenuous.
It seems to me that they are afraid that when a customer calls in with a problem, they might actually have to fix now that it will be less painful for the customer to switch.
Although this problem is somewhat mitigated by the national do not call register.... cellular numbers are given from blocks owned by the cellphone providers and because numbers are not portable between landlines and portables it is easy for telemarketers to filter out the cellular banks from their call lists due to laws forbiding calls to cellular phones due to the reveiver pays nature of US cellular. This FCC ruling makes it so that this will no longer be possible and so telemarketers will be able to call cellphones and claim that they were not aware that it was a cellular number. But I do like the idea of moving my home number to an unlimited use local cellphone, north coast PCS has a 39.99 all you can eat local plan that will fit me nicely, 99.9% of my calls from my home number are local anyways. The amazing thing is the plan will be about as cheap as my local+long distance package cost on my landline.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I don't get why everyone thinks this is going to be such an issue - on either side. Barring an initial flurry of churn, I think the churn rate will settle to slightly above where it is now.
Two things to note, which I have said before:
Local Number Portability (LNP - the wireline equivalent to WNP) has about a 30% failure rate according to agencies such as PUCO (Ohio's regulatory body) and the CPUC (California's regulatory body). Essentially, what happens is that the port does not work, and in most cases, rather than wait for the local telcos to get their ducksinaro, people just accept a new telephone number, one from the pool of numbers assigned to their new telco. I don't foresee this ratio being any better with WNP.
Local Exchanges - Surely you have noticed by now that a carrier normally does not have numbers in each rate centre in an area code. T-Mobile, for example, have numbers in the 310 area code only in Gardena and Santa Monica. If WNP follows the lead of LNP, the only requirement is that they port your existing number IF YOU ARE IN THE SAME RATE CENTRE. If you have a Cingular telephone in the Mar Vista rate centre, or an AT&T phone in the Beverly Hills rate centre, and you skip to T-Mobile, I assume your old provider would not be required to port your old number.
Finally, nowhere does it say that WNP is required to be a FREE service. I could see them charging your new company a fee for the service, and there is no doubt in my mind that the cost will be passed directly to the consumer.
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
You're joking, right?
:-P
1. Cingular have contracts, except on KiC (Keep in Contact) prepaid. Prepaid wireless NEVER has a contract.
2. Omnipoint -> Voicestream -> T-Mobile.
3. Nextel are immensely popular amoung businesses. They cater almost exclusively to businesses (their prepaid Boost Mobile division notwithstanding). Most people who have Nextels, though I hate to admit it because I loathe that "chirp" sound, are soundly in love with their push-to-talk Direct Connect figure.
Come to http://www.wirelessadvisor.com - we'll straighten you out.
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
getting a new phone number is already easy. this isn't what they are complaining about. the block system is what providers use. they acquire a block of numbers and put them in their pool. when in a provider, you choose from their pool.
within a provider, they have legacy systems that restricts phone number by "exchange" or the 3 digits past "area code". they used to signify geographic domains about 30 years ago. cellulars are out of this realm, but the same code applies at some point - with a nice hack i'd like to see.
blocks are constantly bought and sold. their systems now, i'm guessing, rarely sell blocks back. but now they'll have to build a list of "numbers for transfer" and the destination provider when a number has to leave the pool for delivery not the government authority, but another provider.
addionally, these transfers are probably batch legacy jobs, and the schedules of those jobs has to be examined to help a customer's switch with a day or so.
overall, they'll probably get out of most of these backflips by explaining there's some outrageous surcharge and a messy wait (like "5-10 business days"). customers would rather just call mom and say "ma, i have a new phone number"
mug
Why is it that they complain about the costs for things that actually help consumers but they have no problem implementing things that block us from saving money?
My new mLife plan and cell phone have the following âoefeaturesâ:
- Blocks my ability to make a standard RAS connection with my cell phone "modem" (built in feature of the phone) mandating that I use the outrageously priced mLife GPRS data carrier (about $40.00 for 20MB of transfers per month).
- Blocks my ability to restrict dialing of numbers (built into most SIMs at no extra charge but disabled on my AT&T phone)
- Blocks my ability to use the "call costs" feature of my Nokia cell phone so I know how much my calls are actually costing me
Now all of those features were built into the phone (and disabled by AT&T), but what about features that need to be provided on the carrier side?
- There's no carrier provided cost of call during the call (mandatory on German phones)
- Thereâ(TM)s no ability to meter usage (unless you buy the massively expensive "pay as you go" plans)
- Thereâ(TM)s no ability to restrict usage to only a few incoming/outgoing numbers for your kids' phones (the cell phone provided features don't work properly if caller ID is turned off) so itâ(TM)s painfully easy for your kids to go over their monthly minutes.
If these people wonâ(TM)t provide us service that serves us then they need laws to force it out of them. The number portability rule is not only a good one, but long overdue. The fact that theyâ(TM)re lobbying to screw us out of this feature for the sole purpose of lining their pockets at our inconvenience should be swatted down faster than fast.
TW
you can use forwardportal.com to forward your number.
It's fairly new, i think, but some of my friends have listed in it.
(thought I'd put this again at the top)
Here is the contact info for the two representatives mentioned in the article as possibly favoring an extension. It sounds like they are floating a trial balloon to see if they can get away with supporting another extension (and hence get a nice campaign contribution from the Celcos). Getting a flood of responses right now can make a big difference. Send them a fax or letter, it works much, much better than emails. Below is the letter I'm sending but drafting your own comments is best. /.ers have never had trouble expressing themselves :)
Representative Fred Upton
2161 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202 225-3761
202 225-2986 fax
John Shimkus
513 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5271
Fax: (202) 225-5880
Dear Representative Upton,
I read with dismay and considerable disbelief your comments regarding the possibility of extending, yet again, cellular number portability. As you know, this has been mandated since 1996 and extended three times since 1999. To even consider another extension as sought by the largest cellular providers is simply ludicrous. Your constituents have been waiting, and waiting and waiting for years as the cellular companies have trotted out increasingly creative excuses to maintain this anti-competitive and illegitimate hold on consumers. Granting another extension on top of all the others goes against the interest of voting consumers and does not pass even the most basic âoesmellâ test.
Implementing number portability will not divert funds from other projects as claimed because the cellular companies can charge for this new service. In fact, they will make money by offering portability, just not as much as they are now making by extracting over-market prices from customers who are having their phone number held hostage. Everyone from the FCC, the courts, the media, analysts and even Congress itself, agree that consumers will get better value and service in a frictionless free market. To perpetuate this sitation, is to artificially prevent a cellular company that provides better value and service from gaining the customers it deserves. This has the effect of sheltering the larger players from competition while removing incentives for investment, innovation and excellence. It is interesting that some cellular companies want further extensions and some do not. Now that the FCC and courts will no longer entertain their increasingly fantastic arguments, they are seeking to legislate the unfair competitive advantage they cannot maintain any other way. The massive funds already spent by the celcos lobbying to continue holding consumers hostage would be more wisely invested in better service so their customers won't be so desperate to escape.
This issue has grown increasingly high profile. Each extension has focused more eyes on the actions of everyone involved. It is now a common topic of discussion among your constituents, who are expecting to finally enjoy the relief that has been promised yet delayed for so long.
Cell phones (AMPS) were introduced before the explosion in area codes. Local calls were dialed with 7 digits in most places. You only needed to dial an area code if it was a toll (long distance) call. The existing mobile telephone service (non-cellular) used regular 7 digit phone numbers. It was much simpler to just allocate some new exchanges in the existing area codes for the new cellular services. Airtime charges for mobile phone service (pre-cellular, AMPS, TDMA/GSM/CDMA) have always been charged to the mobile subscriber, no matter who originated the call. This means that the wireline telephone companies do not have to modify their billing systems to handle calls to/from mobile telephone subscribers.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Corporations also have obligations to the state and nation in which they are GRANTED their incorporation. They have duties and responsibilites IN GENERAL to the people who make up those states and nations to be not only profitable for themselves and shareholders, but to be of the PUBLIC BENEFIT. When they tend to always hold their profits over the public benefit,or ignore public benefit and actually become a public detriment and impediment and nuisance or threat, then that means THEY HAVE BECOME THAT,they need to have their incorporation charter REVOKED immediately, the officers needs be charged with crimes, and the shareholders are free to retire home, to enjoy not only the hand rubbing glee and gloating over PROFITS they expect as their due, but to also enjoy their opportunity to weep over their gross stupidity and greed in letting conmen, scoundrels and thieves run their companies,in turning a blind eye to their creations habits and actions, and maybe that would make them pay more attention to business ethics and laws and morality when "investing" or when acting as "corporate officers" with actual bona fide duties rather than thinking that their business license is a license to steal and cheat and lie and bribe. Maybe instead of ONLY thinking of their purse, once in a while they might grab a clue or two on civilised behavior. Just because they have expensive suits does not mean they are gentlemen or honorable..it just means they are ludicrously dressed pirates with ribbons on the necks like clowns, the modern uniform of the rape and pillage and loot mercenary class.
Following the laws as originally written and especially as originally intentioned would have sorted out this nonsense long ago. PITY it is not done.
Our nation (and others to be fair) would work a lot better if ALL the laws were applied equitably,as designed, and if they were fair written in english,and not blacks law bottom feeder mumbling gibberish, a collection of sounds and grunts ans shrillities unlike any civilised tongue, designed so that only demons and cretins may recognize the alleged "words", and if all business were conducted by named human beings instead of artificial persons,or golems to be most accurate, and not like it is now with just some of the laws applied most of the time to mostly poor people, with these counterfeit human "corpse-orations", poli-tick-sians and bureaubribeocrats hardly ever having any of the "laws" applied to them in any meaningful manner.
We have a few examples, like lately enron, worldcom, martha stewart "inc" whatever absurdity that is, those sorts of things are the norm, not just isolated cases, and only unique because they got officially "caught",because they probably missed a bribe or three as payment-tribute to some other demon.
A slew of top corporations have been caught lately "trading with the enemy",of very little note in passing on the respectable "walled off from reality street" reports of the business demons scandal rags, that expound most eloquently of the import of digits and confounding math to the absurd level, those sorts of enterprises, but note: those axis of evil nations, and trading with them, despite the oh so pomposity of the grinning baboons of power who strut and preen and instititute the causus belli of righteous wrath on a whim of fantasy, who seek to "save us" from their imaginary boogermen, none of their fellow board-demons seems to have been "fingered".. What has happened to those powerful economic "terrorists" allegedly nabbed? Have any of their corporate officers or "share"holders been charged with a crime, have they been "detained"? Have the "share"holders got to "share" in disappearing to some wretched cage somewhere to be interrogated with "stress and duress" techniques, to make them talk, to force them to give up the names of their fellow plotters of ill? Hmm?...
NOTHING, a small sum of central bank digits transfers to some other obscure account that is loosely labeled "government" and they are saved! Raptured to forgiveness! The
The database required already exists, local number portability has been in effect for landlines for years.
The calls handled by the telephone system are a small fraction of the number of Internet accesses. The DNS chugs along without major problems even though it is continuously under attack from hackers.
There is simply no technical reason not to do local number portability, the switching system already exists. All the telcos have to do is pay for the database dips.
This has nothing to do with technical difficulty. The issue is purely making is a bit more inconvenient for customers to switch.
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