WASHINGTON-Despite the fact that the government has extended the time for wireless carriers to
implement number portability, the government needs to alert all wireless carriers-especially rural ones-they need to
begin implementing wireless number portability later this year, said Anna Miller, chair of the Wireless Number
Portability Subcommittee of the North American Numbering Council.
Portability allows customers to keep their
telephone numbers when switching carriers. The FCC has maintained that local number portability is necessary for
competition to develop.
Saying that it already is competitive, the wireless industry has argued the money spent to
implement WNP immediately could be put to other uses, such as buildout of personal communications services
systems. The FCC agreed in February, extending the WNP implementation date to Nov. 24, 2002. The 2002 date is also
the sunset date for resale obligations for PCS service.
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 telephone number assigned to a specific customer and signify to carriers-in the roaming context-not only the
customer but the carrier to which the customer subscribes. After separation, these identifiers still would be available for
roaming but MIN would not be based on the phone number.
The FCC stressed its decision does not relieve wireless
carriers from implementing WNP, it just delays the deadline. Along those lines, NANC asked its wireless number
portability subcommittee to say when it could implement number pooling. WNP is necessary for number
pooling.
The NANC subcommittee developed a time line showing implementation must begin by the end of 1999 to
meet the Nov. 24, 2002 deadline.
Some NANC members criticized the time line because it did not answer the
question of when the wireless industry would be ready for number pooling.
The wireless subcommittee believes that
MIN/MDN separation-which is a critical part of local number portability for wireless carriers using cellular Advanced
Mobile Phone Service, Code Division Multiple Access and Time Division Multiple Access technologies-must be
completed before pooling can occur because roaming must be maintained while implementing pooling.
Wireless
carriers using Global System for Mobile communications technology do not use MIN/MDN combinations, so this
separation is not necessary.
The wireless subcommittee does not believe pooling can be implemented without
MDN/MIN separation if roaming is to be maintained. “If you break [roaming notification between carriers], the
person becomes stationary. If everybody hasn’t done the split, it breaks the association with a home service
provider,” said Paula Jordan of AirTouch Communications Inc.
The FCC public notice would alert all carriers
of the WNP obligations and what the industry is doing to develop an industry-wide plan to meet those
obligations.
Since only 10 carriers are participating in the NANC wireless number portability subcommittee
process, hundreds of other carriers may not be getting ready for the 2002 date.
Another concern is that because
wireline local number portability is only being implemented in the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas, some rural
wireline carriers that operate wireless systems or participate in consortia that operate wireless systems will believe they
do not have to implement WNP. For roaming to be effective, all carriers must deploy by the date certain of Nov. 24,
2002.
In other NANC action, Nextlink Communications, a wireless facilities-based competitive local exchange
carrier, reported problems with the implementation of wireline local number portability and called for the creation of a
national forum to address NANC number portability issues. The forum also could be used to enforce NANC guidelines
for implementing number portability. The forum was endorsed by the Association of Local Telecommunications
Services, but another member questioned whether bringing this issue to NANC was “a bit of forum
shopping.” The FCC’s Kris Monteith disagreed saying this issue was best solved by NANC because NANC is an
FCC federal advisory committee charged with implementing number portability.
A NANC issues management
group will further examine this issue and report back at the next NANC meeting.
