BOSTON-In terms of dollars and labor, wireless number portability will cost wireless carriers more than any other single issue, according to the Yankee Group in its recently released report, Wireless Number Portability: A Bowl of Cherries for Competition … but Just the Pits for Everyone Else?
“Over the next three years, carriers may collectively spend up to $1 billion upgrading their networks for number portability,” said David Berndt, a program manager in the Yankee Group’s Wireless/Mobile Communications Planning Service. “Beyond this amount, there will be significant ongoing costs.”
Number portability allows subscribers to keep the same phone number even if they switch carriers. Wireless carriers will bear a “significant burden” of the direct effects of wireless number portability, the Yankee Group said. Databases, the Signal System 7 networks, switches, home location registers, service control points, numbering plan administration, billing systems, customer service and handsets all are affected by number portability.
Carriers also will need to make arrangements with other carriers to handle call routing to ported number ranges. Wireless carriers that “fail to establish such agreements will end up paying three times as much” as carriers that have, Berndt said. “The cost of ignoring this issue is enormous.”
Wireless carriers appear to recognize the problem of number portability and have organized task forces to look at the issue and identify its impact, according to the report. While a few wireless carriers-namely B-side carriers that can test with their wireline parent company-have progressed to actually testing possible solutions, no carrier has begun to implement a complete set of solutions to deploy number portability, the Yankee Group said.
The indirect effects of number portability may be more significant than the direct effects, the report suggests. Once number portability is deployed, the biggest change will be in the carrier-customer relationship. “The level of churn within the wireless industry could significantly rise unless carriers learn how to retain their customers more effectively,” Berndt stated.
Carriers should consider the introduction of a new level of competition within the wireless industry as a new opportunity instead of a mandate “about headaches and spending lots of money,” the report advises. “Astute carriers will leverage the costly upgrades required … to implement other intelligent network applications that take advantage of the same infrastructure.” For example, with improved database management and intelligent-network technology, enhanced wireless services can be deployed faster and function better.
“Number portability definitely benefits the customer,” said Berndt, “Now, it’s up to the carriers and vendors to determine how much it benefits them also.”
