Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.