They will certainly be entitled to recoup their costs.
Really?
Maybe the way the fcc has kowtowed to the bells, but that's not the way it was set up in Europe, and that's certainly not the way it should be.
In Europe, because they standardized on one technology, you don't like your company, you pull the card from the phone, and insert another card into the same phone. You don't have to buy a new phone to switch companies. Yet, magically, there are no monthly fees for "number portability". They've been able to switch companies without loosing numbers for some time now.
When the cell phone companies started, the licenses were looked upon as a license to print money. How much of a profit are the consumers required to guarantee to cell phone companies?
This is a cost of doing business. The cell phone companies don't like it? Sell the license to the spectrum to someone else who'd love the chance to take over, and go find some other money printing business that makes them the same money.
Two companies at a minumum have been charging between $1.50 and $2.00 for more than a year now on bills for number portability.
May be a line item, or may be part of "cost recovery fee".
Expect that fee to rise as more and more people switch.
Matter of fact I am going to have text messaging disabled on my phone
If you're using nextel, you're in for a fight. And probably others as well.
Nextel at first gave free text messages. Then the spam started. Then the fight started.
Customer service insisted that it was impossible to turn off text messaging. Every account gets it. Then more spam came. Other than the spam, the feature wasn't used by us at all. At that point, the real argument started. That was less than 6 months ago. They had a head up on number portability. I had heard about it, but didn't know the details/deadline. So their hard pitches started on trying to convert the account from month-to-month, to a two year contract (free extra minutes, blah, blah, blah). Yet they couldn't turn off text messaging.
Next spam message that came in, call them up to complain, couldn't turn off messaging, but would give free messages each month (500 I think).
Next spam message comes in, call them up...either they turn text messaging off, or I cancel the account. This was just a couple of months ago. Number portability looming...
Guess what? They turned text messaging off, even though it was impossible to do.
Cancelled the service anyway. Every month it was nickel and diming with new fees. A dollar one month, a half the next month, catch it, complain, reverses, catch it, complain, too bad, catch it, complain, reverses, etc., etc., etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Really?
Maybe the way the fcc has kowtowed to the bells, but that's not the way it was set up in Europe, and that's certainly not the way it should be.
In Europe, because they standardized on one technology, you don't like your company, you pull the card from the phone, and insert another card into the same phone. You don't have to buy a new phone to switch companies. Yet, magically, there are no monthly fees for "number portability". They've been able to switch companies without loosing numbers for some time now.
When the cell phone companies started, the licenses were looked upon as a license to print money. How much of a profit are the consumers required to guarantee to cell phone companies?
This is a cost of doing business. The cell phone companies don't like it? Sell the license to the spectrum to someone else who'd love the chance to take over, and go find some other money printing business that makes them the same money.
Two companies at a minumum have been charging between $1.50 and $2.00 for more than a year now on bills for number portability.
May be a line item, or may be part of "cost recovery fee".
Expect that fee to rise as more and more people switch.
917 is also used for home phones now in NYC
If you're using nextel, you're in for a fight. And probably others as well.
Nextel at first gave free text messages. Then the spam started. Then the fight started.
Customer service insisted that it was impossible to turn off text messaging. Every account gets it. Then more spam came. Other than the spam, the feature wasn't used by us at all. At that point, the real argument started. That was less than 6 months ago. They had a head up on number portability. I had heard about it, but didn't know the details/deadline. So their hard pitches started on trying to convert the account from month-to-month, to a two year contract (free extra minutes, blah, blah, blah). Yet they couldn't turn off text messaging.
Next spam message that came in, call them up to complain, couldn't turn off messaging, but would give free messages each month (500 I think).
Next spam message comes in, call them up...either they turn text messaging off, or I cancel the account. This was just a couple of months ago. Number portability looming...
Guess what? They turned text messaging off, even though it was impossible to do.
Cancelled the service anyway. Every month it was nickel and diming with new fees. A dollar one month, a half the next month, catch it, complain, reverses, catch it, complain, too bad, catch it, complain, reverses, etc., etc., etc.