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."

Comments

This is easy for Verizon

[mao che minh]

Verizon keeps complaining about the costs associated with this (getting themselves able to handle portable numbers with celluar phones). So, why don't they just do what every other corporation does to save money: hire half-assed tech support and software developers in foreign nations, and blame the poor state of the economy (which never hurts them, since their alarmingly high revenue stream comes from the unregulated Baby Bell status) to cut employee benefits here stateside? What's the big deal? It's a proven cost-saving method for corporations.

Excuse me, why are you telling me that Hell is hot? Why should I care?

PS: fist post fools

Re:This is easy for Verizon

[Darby]

but the point of a corporation is to make money, not to help the customer.

But you're forgetting that the only reason that We The People even allow them to exist is to provide a benefit to us. I think you might have drunk way too much of the kool-aid they're pumping out and forgotten that simple fact.
We rule them. They have no right to tell us what we can or cannot do. If there were less roll over and bare your belly people like you around this shit would not be happenning.

Are lobbyists cheap?

[dspyder]

For the amount of money the cellphone companies have collectively spent on lobbying and fighting court battles, they could have hired a bunch of the out-of-work slashdotters and solved teh problem once and for all.

Oh, it's not _truly_ a technology problem? :)

--D

Re:I'm confused...

[XorNand]

Verizon is a public corporation. It answers to its shareholders, who's only concern is profit.
If you think they have any interest in "protecting the rights of consumers", boy do I have deal for you on some Packard-Bell desktops.

Glad to see rationality won!

[jordandeamattson]

Glad to see that rationality won out here! All we are talking about is having the facility to deactivate a number on one network and forward it to another network. We are talking about being able to perform a database update, had a packet to another system, and perform another database update. This isn't rocket science. Yes, it is work and will be critical to get it right, but the overall investment should be relatively small. That plus that fact we have been paying for it (check your cell phone bill).

The judge was right, the carriers waited way too long to protest. Now they have to do it or face penalities. I am waiting for November and then it is goodbye Cingular and hello T-Mobile for my Treo (can you say GPRS, world-wide coverage that will let me easily and cheaply use my phone in India and Germany?)! I was waiting for this to happen, because I couldn't/wouldn't give up my number. But every month I cursed Cingular under my breath. I will be first in line to move!

Reason Why

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem has nothing to do with the techinical aspect of it.
But the fact that most people hate changing numbers; and Verizon has 1/3 of all the cell phone customers out there. Basicly they have a huge customer base that would like to try out one of the other carriers, but It is too much hassle.
Plus most of the remaining 2/3's don't have good enough credit for verizon.

For all the other carriers it would be great if they could try and take business away from verizon.

Re:Verizon is always complaining.

[megsaint]

I would just like to point out that Verizon is the former Baby Bell. Verizon Wireless is a subsidiary partly owned by Verizon and partly owned by British telecom company Vodafone. Although there is a very strong relationship between Verizion and Verizon Wirless, *they are not the same company*.

Rights

[Jack Comics]

And exactly *where* in the Constitution and/or Bill of Rights are we guaranteed the right of keeping our mobile telephone number forever? I don't see the big deal here. People have changed telephone numbers for the past one hundred years, and society as we know it has moved along just fine.

People keep thinking they're entitled to more and more when they're only entitled to three basic fundamental things: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nothing more, nothing less.

easy number portability

[kwiqsilver]

Wouldn't it be easy to provide number portability if phone numbers were more of an alias?
If we had an equivalent to DNS for phones, you could have some character string represent your phone, the equivalent of an IP address represent the service contract you have with your provider, and the hardware address represent that particular piece of hardware.
Switching providers while retaining your number (and even your phone if they use the same protocols) would be as easy as switching slashdot.org's internet provider.

Associated Cost

[qtp]

Costs Associated with Implementing Portable Numbers, by percent:

10% Tecnical Implementation
90% Lost Business

In other words, "our business model is threatened by new technology, lets lobby to have our business model mandated by law."

Prior Art:

MPAA
RIAA
Microsoft

"Or maybe we should sue someone."

Prior Art:

SCO

Anyone see a trend in the corporate culture?