Hong Kong's Lessons on Number Portability

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday November 23, 2003 @06:35AM from the learning-from-history dept.

Dr.Hair writes "Dan Gillmor once again hits the nail on the head with his comparison of Hong Kong's competitive mobile phone market to the United States. Experiences of incumbent carriers trying to thwart competition and stifle the free market in Hong Kong should be remembered as the FCC nudges US carriers to carry out number portability. In the end competition should provide better customer service, better coverage, and better pricing in the US, all of which will eat in to carrier profits. But it also might bring the US out of the tech backwaters, where customer lock-in is the marketing strategy and "innovation" is the spin of the day."

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Hrumph... by volkris · 2003-11-23 07:21 · Score: 0, Flamebait

But in the end the number doesn't belong to the customer and these new regulations force businesses to give away things that are rightfully theirs.

I mean, if the US needed to be pushed out of technological backwaters the federal government could simply require all phones and phone services to be immediately discarded and replaced with new ones. Immediately jail any person found using old technology.

I mean, if you're going to start screwing with peoples' property and contract rights like this you might as well go all the way.