Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Drops Opposition To Cell-Number Portability
EyesWideOpen writes "Verizon has announced (NYTimes - free registration required) that it would drop its opposition to the proposed F.C.C plan that would allow callers to keep their wireless phone numbers when they switch carriers. Verizon, the nation's largest mobile phone company, was seen as 'the standard-bearer of the opposition against wireless number portability' but has shifted it's position citing the recent court ruling as the reason for doing so. The F.C.C has set a deadline of November 24 for it's rules to take effect. Other mobile phone companies such as Cingular Wireless and AT&T Wireless are still expected to appeal the court ruling. Several previous stories on number portability here(1), here(2), here(3), here(4), and here(5)."
nopass:nopass
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Just pretend you're GOOGLE NEWS.
read the very bottom of this:
Verizon
apparently there is still a bill in congress that may delay the number change date.
No doubt!
Seems like the contracts get worse each and each year. I've been with my provider (Cellular South) for about 5 years, and am still under a contract that gives:
100 "anytime" min a month
free incoming calls
unlimited nights and weekends (at 7pm - not 9pm)
for 29.95
Now, don't get me wrong, Celluar South's billing is the worst i've ever seen, I haven't even received a bill in the last 3 years (DON'T sign up for their online billing--it doesn't really exist and then they can't get you back to paper-bill land), but as long as I can remember to use their convoluted automated credit card payment, it's really not a problem.
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
As an employee of Cingular wireless, I can say that we're preparing our backend system to be able to do this. I believe all of the systems are in place, but that they're just testing the system. This could definatly spur competition in the cellular industry, and my completely unbiased (yeah, right) opinion tells me it will work to our advantage by driving more customers to us.
It's obviously a move to gain consumer support and get customers to switch.
They probably also believe that they weren't going to get their way and therefore best put their money towards getting the infrastructure in place by the deadline. Also, they probably realised that by making it easier for customers to switch, then with a good marketing campaign, people probably will.
Since cell phone number are virtual, relative to the phone, the real work is actually on the land based switches. Then again given that the infrastructure had to be in place to allow the calls to be routed to the cell phone networks, then the ability to switch phone numbers is only at maximum a firmware update away.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Nextel is a great example of marketing a technically inferior product as superior. And they seem to be successful at it.
The Push To Talk function takes a perfectly good full-duplex cell phone and turns it into a half-duplex walkie-talkie. They even give you a thicker and heavier phone to keep up the illusion!
Nextel fans like to point out that PTT is built into the IDEN network, and other carriers can never offer such a feature. TMobile, however, offers unlimited mobile to mobile calling for $10. You get full duplex all the way with TMobile.
Well, the problem with this is that the different services have differing technologies. Right now, only GSM phones have the ability to have sim cards in them, thus making a service portable amongst different GSM phones. If you have a CDMA service (i.e. Verizon, Sprint) you are out of luck, because there is no sim card ability and Verizon and Sprint operate on different CDMA frequencies (although YMMV)..
There is talk about producing CDMA phones with a sim card-like ability, but it is currently in vapor stage. Until then, Verizon and Sprint can pretty much dictate what phones live on their networks.
If you really want some type of phone portibility amongst the carriers, your best luck is to get ATT, T-Mobile, or Cingular for their GSM network. Then you can pretty much just move a new sim card to your old phone and voila... Also, if you get one of these phones, you can also use them in Europe (with the appropriate service and if the phone is multi-band))...
Anyways, just my two cents
Sigs are for losers::
In the US, telephone numbers are not purchased; instead, they're maintained and distributed by specific authorities (e.g. the North American Numbering Plan Administrator [NANPA] or the Pooling Administrator). Carriers can request new blocks of numbers once they meet certain regulatory thresholds (e.g. xx% of their existing number inventory is utilized); once they receive these new numbers, the carrier can assign the numbers however it likes. The TNs can't be taken away as far as I know unless the carrier has a number inventory in excess of what they actually need, in which case the carrier elects which number ranges to return to NANPA or similar authority. So once a number range is received and as long as it is used by a sufficient number of customers, for all intents and purposes it will continue to belong to the carrier and can't be taken away.