The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has filed comments with federal regulators opposing Ameritech’s new telephone numbering plan for Illinois.
CTIA said the new area code plan is anticompetitive and discriminatory against wireless carriers and customers. Under the new area code plan, customers who order paging or cellular service in the 312 or 708 area codes will be assigned numbers with a new 630 area code, and existing cellular and paging subscribers in metropolitan Chicago will have to turn in their old numbers for new 630 area code numbers. Wireless carriers will pick up the cost of moving existing subscribers.
“Ameritech’s wireless overlay plan is discriminatory and imposes unwanted burdens on the wireless industry because it requires all wireless carriers, and only wireless carriers, to surrender their existing numbers,” CTIA said in its filing with the Federal Communications Commission. CTIA also urged the commission to adopt a proposal to assign responsibility for the administration and assignment of telephone numbers to a new independent entity.
People who want to call a wireless subscriber will have to dial 10 or 11 digits, CTIA said, instead of the seven digits needed to call wireline subscribers.
Other groups filing opposing comments with the FCC include the Personal Communications Industry Association, MobileMedia Communcations Inc., Page Mart Inc. and Paging Network Inc.
