WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is expected to grant a request from the
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association not to enforce wireless number portability rules until at least
November 2002.
Portability refers to a customer’s ability to change carriers without having to change telephone
numbers. The FCC consistently has said number portability is necessary for competition to develop. CTIA and other
wireless players argue WNP is not necessary because the wireless industry already is competitive.
The FCC’s
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau already delayed the implementation of WNP until March 31, 2000. If, as
expected, the FCC grants the CTIA forbearance petition on WNP, the deployment of this feature could be delayed for
another three years or even longer.
CTIA asked in its petition that forbearance be granted until the end of the
buildout of personal communications services.
The FCC, in its PCS resale rules has decreed that date to be
November 2002. At that time, if the petition is granted, CTIA expects the FCC to give WNP a fresh look in the face of
competition. The FCC should use the amount of competition in the wireless industry to determine the need for wireless
number portability, CTIA said.
Congress established procedures in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that allow
entities to ask the FCC to “forebear” from enforcing rules that have become moot due to
competition.
The FCC refused to comment publicly on the status of the CTIA petition, but the agency must rule on
the item before March 15.
The decision is being delayed due to concerns at the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau
about the conservation of numbers.
The Common Carrier Bureau is concerned whether the numbering conservation
efforts will work if the FCC requires number pooling in an effort to conserve telephone numbers and the wireless
industry cannot pool numbers because pooling is based on number portability, said Thomas Sugrue, chief of the WTB.
The FCC is “wrestling with” this issue and working with industry to find “ways to address the
number exhaust [issue]. Those discussions have been positive. They are not finished,” Sugrue said.
CTIA’s
petition “addressed the issue of competition. It is the FCC that raised the notion of number utilization. We have
been meeting with [FCC staff] as they have been examining number efficiencies and tying that to our forbearance
petition,” said Brian Fontes, CTIA senior vice president for policy and administration.
If the FCC does not
grant CTIA’s request, the issue is slated to be debated before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver in May. Bell
Atlantic Mobile has led the industry in a legal effort to overturn the WNP rules. BAM argues that Congress did not
intend for the wireless industry to be subject to portability when it included the requirement in the telecom act. The
FCC disagrees but has said it would be more technically challenging for the wireless industry to implement number
portability than it will be for the wireline industry.
In lieu of either forbearance or a successful appeal, the wireless
industry is working toward a WNP plan that would separate the mobile identification number and mobile directory
number. Currently these numbers are based on the customer’s telephone number and signify to carriers-for roaming-the
customer and their carrier. After separation, these identifiers still will be available for roaming but the MIN will not be
based on the telephone number.
