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Hong Kong's Lessons on Number Portability
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."
Number portability is about moving the same number across different mobile networks, which we have been able to do at least since 2000 (when I did it).
It is not about starting mobile numbers with 07 etc (IIRC, all mobile numbers in HK have to begin with a 9 or a 6 and all fixed lines, residential or sommercial start with 2 or 3 or only have 7 digits.).
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FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
We have had number portability for some time here in Sweden too. I've also changed cell phone providers a couple of times but at least to me it hasn't been the great competitive thing I hoped it to be. The phone companies just have differentiated more heavily their prices, much like insurance companies. So one is cheaper to connect a call with, another is cheaper to SMS with, yet another is cheaper for something else. To really compare prices you need to know exactly what services you use a month, exactly what time you use them AND to which numbers. This is a very hard job with an individual result, so in the end not many people compare prices at all.
At some point I hope they legislate to prevent the mobile carriers from crippling the phones they sell.
When GSM first got going in N.America I bought a Motorola triband GSM phone ( 900,1800,1900 frequencies) from a Circuit City in Minnesota.
It was sold with a VoiceStream activation package.
Of course, when I took it home to Canada I found it was "SIMM locked" to only work with VoiceStream!
After some longish and not amusing phone conversations with VoiceStream I managed to get it unlocked by reminding them that they do not have service here in Canada.
Then I took it with me this summer to Malaysia and Singapore. That is when I found it was also crippled. The only frequency it would work on was the N.American 1900 band.
When I got back I contacted VoiceStream and Motorola to ask what it would take to restore the phone to allow it so work with the frequencies it was advertised as being capable of.
The response was that as VoiceStream ordered these with only 1900 capability the rest was "turned off" in the ROM version shipped to VoiceStream.
"Can they "repair" it?"
"No."
I will pay ( even though I should not have to)
"No"
Can I return it?
"No"
Total rip-off..
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Column...
eJournal
I think it depends on the demographic. Some people just really want a cheap cell plan. Though, they might change their mind when they don't get service a mile down the street. Some providers are a bit upscale, Verizon Wireless and Nextel come to mind. They focus on features/service etc. rather than price.
Actually the numbers don't belong to the businesses. All numbers are handed out in North America by the North American Numbering Plan Administration in coordination with local regulatory agencies.
To allow businesses to compete on something that isn't their property is definitely ludicrous.
In Britain, all four providers use GSM. In the US there's at least four widely used standards, iDEN, GSM, IS-95 (often also known as "CDMA"), and IS-136 (or rather a bunch of slightly different standards based upon it, also known as "TDMA" or "D-AMPS") plus AMPS (the original analog service.) Only GSM and iDEN support "personal mobility" - the ability to keep your subscriber details seperate from the physical hardware you use to connect, and as there's only one iDEN operator, it's somewhat irrelevent for the latter.
Thankfully GSM is finally taking off in the US, but with IS-95 and its successors being the dominant standard for now, US subscribers will have to wait for Qualcomm to pull their finger out and support personal mobility as well before having the same portability of hardware that's standard in Europe. Unfortunately, while Qualcomm has done this for a couple of markets (notably in China), they've stalled on the issue with the US, even claiming it would be illegal to do so (because they've standardised in ESN numbers to identify subscribers, and an FCC rule bars moving an ESN from phone phone to another.) The fundamental reason is actually that the carriers do not want this.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In England you have to have your phone "unlocked" to use it on another network. The process isn't legal, but small shops will do it for about 10 quid.
This is entirely dependent on the network you use. Orange lock all of their phones, whereas Vodaphone generally don't (although a few of their recent Live! offerings have been locked). The process of unlocking the phone is completely legal in a lot of cases. I used to have a Siemens SL42e on Orange. You could unlock it by sending it to an official Siemens support centre. I also had a friend who was going travelling for a few months and wanted to be able to use foreign Pay As You Go SIM cards in his Siemens S55. He phoned up Orange and they unlocked it over the air for him. I know for a fact that Vodaphone's locked version of the Sony Ericsson T610 can be unlocked by applying an official SE firmware to it.
It's 100% legal in all cases. You own the phone, you can unlock the SP lock if you wish - there is absolutely nothing illegal about it, that's why you see it advertised in shop windows etc.
Changing the IMEI number (GSM serial number, basically) is illegal, however because this is what the CEIR blocklist for stolen phones it based upon. You can see your IMEI on a GSM handset by ptying *#06#
In Denmark we've had number portability for several years. My current cell number has been through 3 different providers. IMO it's been a huge benefit to competition. For instance, I recently switched provider during a price battle that cut my phone bill in half. (My old one followed through most of the way, but they'd never have done it without number portability) They are obliged to extend number portability to work between cell and fixed line phones this april which I'm not so sure is a good idea - I like to know where I' calling because of pricing.
Best current rates in Denmark are about 10c/min, SMS's are 3-4c apiece with no subscription. Some expect the price to fall even lower within the next year. The government agency on IT and Communication runs a helpful price guide to internet and phone providers. Of course all the providers interoperate, so you can just switch sim cards to switch provider and you can call and SMS anyone.
Several providers offer subsidized phones that can be very cheap, but they're not allowed to simlock it to their network for longer than 6 months. It's not illegal to have the simlock prematurely unlocked and it is offered publicly for 15-20 Euro. (You might get better rates elsewhere). Your contract will however be enforceable, so you'll pay subscription fees. I used this possibility recently to use my phone with a german provider during my stay there. (It's illegal in Germany though - I sent my phone from Germany to Denmark to have it unlocked - go call the police)
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
Your mobile phone has nothing to do with number portability.
Phones in the places you have mentioned, such as Hong Kong, use GSM mobile phone networks, at either 800 MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz or 1900MHz. North America uses 1900MHz GSM networks, which are not used in many places elsewhere. In Europe and Asia, GSM phones are made dual band, that is, they are able to cater to 2 frequencies, the 2 common ones. A different (and oftentimes more expensive) phone is needed if you wish to use it in the US, a tri-band phone. GSM phones allow for the phone configurations to be interchangable by simply placing a different chip (SIM card) in the phone, provided by the phone company, which contains the necessary phone provider details. Switch provider and just switch your SIM card, and you're good to go.
However, North America's largest cellular phone providers have built digital networks that run on either CDMA or TDMA technology. So the main problem here is different providers use different phone technologies, so they will never be interchangable. CDMA and TDMA networks exist elsewhere in the world, including Hong Kong, but are slowly becoming obselete as they are replaced by the better GSM networks.
GSM networks do exist in North America. T-Mobile's network is GSM, AT&T offers GSM coverage in a few large cities.
As a result, places like Hong Kong have a much more competitive market. I have seen advertised 3000 minutes for $20, 600 minute plans as low as $5/month. But then again, preparing a small densly populated city for a new telecommunications network is a lot easier and less costly than preparing a large predominantly suburban nation for the same.
I don't see what this has to do with monopolies. Number portability does decrease the switching costs of consumers, but it doesn't give any company more of an advantage or disadvantage, and it's not going to change the number of companies on the market because it's regulated by the FCC.
Many economists would argue that the only true monopolies are those granted by the government - gas companies, local phone companies, cable companies, ect.
The interesting thing is that one of the most innovative and profitable cell phone companies developed in spite of, not because of government regulation. I'm talking about NexTel. They wanted to start a cell phone company, but couldn't get a frequency, so they bought a bunch of shortwave radio licenses held by taxi companies, messanger services, ect. The FCC said they had to include the radio feature on their phones, so they introduced Direct Connect push to talk service, and it's made them a ton of money.
I have blog like everyone else
>>Firstly, the one thing that unites just about every civilization since Sumeria is a free market. The practice of barter is just about the most ancient one in human history.
no no no. don't confuse the existence of trade with free markets. Even in the Soviet Union you had to pay for food. There's no nation on earth that actually practices a truly free market -- they all have subsidies and import/export tariffs and restrictions that unfairly discriminate against at least some foreign imports. And many industries are dominated either by a monopoly (M$) or a cartel (oil) - and without government intervention under antitrust laws, a lot more would be.
The author of this post asserts his moral rights.
Here in Calif, it is quite different.
Dring from San Francisco/San Jose to Los Angeles down I-5, Verizon(CDMA) sucks! (dropped calls, etc)
Cingular (GSM) on the other hand goes strong all the way, through the central valley farm land.
-Grump
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Ok, compare to Australia then...
We've had number portability for a couple of years now...and I don't think you'll find many countries much less densly populated.
Advanced users are users too!
The US has a different pricing model, so that problem won't come up. In the US outgoing calls are billed as international/long distance/local, depending on the number. The extra cost of calling a cell phone has been transfered to the person called. This means that if someone calls you long distance on your cell phone you can get quite a charge for a call you did not orginate...
Recently a couple of companies (Nextel for one) have offered plans with free incoming calls. But since the precedent has been established, there is still no extra charge to the caller. I assume they cover the cost in other areas.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Thankfully GSM is finally taking off in the US, but with IS-95 and its successors being the dominant standard for now,
GSM taking off in the US is a giant step backwards. GSM is an old system and technologically inferior by today's standards. Bandwidth hungry, power hungry (look at the talk times on some of the newer CDMA phones), and insecure.
US subscribers will have to wait for Qualcomm to pull their finger out and support personal mobility as well before having the same portability of hardware that's standard in Europe.
Qualcomm doesn't have to do anything. There is no limitation in current or next gen CDMA standards that prevent mobility. In fact, most new CDMA phones are coming with (currently unused) SIM card sockets.
(because they've standardised in ESN numbers to identify subscribers, and an FCC rule bars moving an ESN from phone phone to another.) The fundamental reason is actually that the carriers do not want this.
You are wrong. The ESN is not used to key customers in any CDMA based network I know about in the US. When one purchases a new phone they can deassociate the old ESN with the MIN (the phone number), and associate the new phone ESN with the same MIN. In other words, phone number mobility works in the same system. A phone number in the system can be moved from ESN to ESN.
In almost every respect, CDMA and CDMA2000 are technologically superior to GSM. And this has more to do with the fact that they simply represent the 10 years of progress in communications research. GSM was nearly state of the art at its time (to be fair though, the whole set of GSM standards suffered from being designed by committee. Qualcomm eschewed that problem.)
It is true that providers do not support mobility, nor do they want to. Even if it only cost $10 to retool switching and system management software to support mobility, there is no incentive for the providers that are doing the work, and only the risk that they will lose customers.
Yes, I now work for a large mobile company and am one of 200 or so that will be handling all your porting needs. :)
That's not exactly true. We reported to training a mere 2 weeks ago, plucked from Wal-Marts, welfare and nursing homes. I'm only barely kidding. We don't know _shit_ and here's the reason: my company put this off _hoping_ the FCC would let the mobile carriers stall for longer (ie, they did _not_ want this to happen). And so they rushed us through what should have been 4-6 weeks training in 12 days, then 2 working days before we go live they train us in Porting... which really only lasted 1 day since the last day (Friday)was spent on cake, speeches and making sure our terminals worked.
The highest score on the assesments was an 85%, the average was 65% (though even if you got a 0 you still passed).
Not that I'm complaining, I make a lot more money now and have benefits
Anyway, take the advice of a professional number porter, wait a few weeks after the start date till we (the operators) figure this crap out.
Remarkable I have not seen any comments from Hong Kong. I happen to live there for 1 1/2 years now, and of course I have my mobile phone.
So far I have once switched providers - an easy and painless issue. It cost me like $20 admin cost (1USD=7.8HKD, so that is abt USD2.5), and three days later it was ported over.
On calling cost: that is indeed truly low. I pay $89 (abt USD12) a month for 500 mins airtime (calling and being called), including call forwarding (press when being called on the mobile, and answer on the land line: no airtime paybable!), voicemail, SMS services, etc.
Calling landline to landline is free. Calling landline to mobile is free (mobile pays airtime only).
Calling cost are so low, many providers do not send you a paper invoice (costs $10 (just over USD1) service cost), only SMS and e-mail invoice.
Don't forget Hong Kongs 7mln people live on an area only 30x50 km in size, of which a large part is water. The high buildings are the largest problem for the networks: reflections. Buidling a country wide network is therefor easy and cheap. Networks are good and reliable, also high in the mountain (up to 990m high it goes here!) you have network.
Oh and for price comparison: though life is expensive, and Hong Kong has a name of being an expensive place to live, that is only housing. Everything else is cheap here.
Wouter.