WASHINGTON-Verizon Wireless broke with its industry brethren again when it said it had signed a service-level agreement with its wireline parent, Verizon Communications Inc., to enable numbers to be ported starting Nov. 24.
“The two companies have demonstrated that, when willing, these pacts can be accomplished by other wireless and wireline companies as they prepare for number portability,” said the businesses. “The Verizon/Verizon Wireless agreement shows that, while significant policy and procedural issues remain for both wireline and wireless companies as they turn to implementing number portability, the work can-and should-be completed quickly to ensure that the nation’s phone users can benefit from this new freedom.”
Verizon said it would allow wireline customers to port their telephone numbers to Verizon Wireless once wireless local number portability is implemented and will not delay the porting process due to a pending balance or termination fee.
The porting process between landline and wireless will be non-geographic, allowing customers to port their wireline numbers even if Verizon Wireless does not have phone numbers located in the same landline-rating center, said Verizon.
The issue of geographic porting is sensitive for the wireline industry, which for several decades has been regulated using rate centers to determine the amount to charge to carry a call. When the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, Congress said that customers must be able to switch providers and keep their telephone numbers. The Federal Communications Commission later said this did not include geographic porting, so customers generally could not move across town and keep their same phone numbers.
Wireline carriers believe that it would be geographic porting if they are required to port to wireless carriers, which do not have a switch in a rate center.
To further this argument, a law firm representing small rural telephone companies last week requested a waiver from LNP until the FCC decides the rate-center issue.
“The company is not aware of any FCC decision requiring geographic location portability nor of any proceeding that would have developed the necessary facts to provide a sustainable public-policy determination that geographic location portability should be required,” wrote Sylvia Lesse of Kraskin, Lesse & Cosson L.L.C.
In a meeting with Lisa Zaina of FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein’s office, the U.S. Telecom Association reiterated its concerns that the FCC must consider the impact to wireline carriers if it requires wireline to wireless LNP, said Michael McMenamin, USTA associate counsel.
Verizon said the agreement with its wireless subsidiary was made under the terms of a multi-state standalone agreement instead of through negotiation of interconnection agreement amendments, which Verizon noted it does not think are necessary between wireline and wireless providers.
This sentiment is not shared by Verizon’s wireline counterparts, which have told the FCC that interconnection agreements are necessary.
The agreement between the two Verizons was not made public. The companies are waiting for guidance from the FCC as to whether the porting must be accomplished within a few hours, as the wireless industry has suggested, or a few days as is the practice in the wireline industry, said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson.
This is the type of guidance the industry has been waiting for all summer. The FCC’s top wireless staffer last week promised only that it would be available before Nov. 24, but gave no hint as to how the agency would come down on the issues.
“The date is firm,” said John Muleta Tuesday at his quarterly press briefing. “The Nov. 24 deadline has been about getting wireless-to-wireless portability.”
“The industry needs rules, not guidance. CTIA is, of course, concerned with the FCC’s intent to separate the resolution of inter-modal porting issues from wireless-to-wireless porting. The cornerstone of local number portability policy is to promote competition between wireline and wireless carriers. The FCC’s timetable is troubling,” said Lori Messing, director of numbering issues for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
The allowable porting time is only one of a laundry list of issues industry believes it needs to have resolved before WLNP can be successful.
“Our goal is to address those issues by Nov. 24 to provide clarity. The bottom line there though is that we have two industries that have grown up under two different regulatory structures, and those things need to be aligned. We have to work jointly with the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau. Again, what we want to encourage is as much competition as possible within the limits of LNP and to do it in a way that is a smooth and efficient process for consumers. We would expect the net result is that consumers will have greater choice in both prices and services and flexibility,” said Muleta.
Muleta hopes carriers are able to reach service-level agreements to implement LNP in all forms. “A lot of the technical issues have been resolved. What really seems to be at the center of dispute between the carriers now seems to be what are called service-level agreements,” he said. “Ideally, companies should have the incentives to set up these bi-lateral arrangements to make it easier for their systems and processes.”
The FCC has received status letters in response to inquiries made earlier this month on WLNP.
AT&T Wireless Services Inc. “is making diligent efforts to meet the FCC’s local number portability mandate. However, without guidance from the commission on critical outstanding issues raised in the pending CTIA petitions, and related petitions and ex partes, there likely will be significant delays and operational problems with wireless-to-wireless porting, and it is highly questionable whether wireline-to-wireless porting will proceed at all. This will not only adversely affect the carriers that are in good faith attempting to support the porting process, but will also negatively affect customers who desire to port their numbers,” wrote Douglas Brandon, AT&T Wireless vice president of external affairs and law.
In addition, Muleta and David Solomon, chief of the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau, are traveling soon to see how Cingular Wireless L.L.C.-one of the most ardent critics of WLNP-is progressing on its implementation.
Perhaps in anticipation of this visit, Cingular last week released what it called the “Checklist of A-to-Z of WLNP”for consumers who plan to change carriers and take their numbers with them.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit set out a briefing schedule on the request by CTIA that the court force the FCC to issue the long-awaited guidance. The FCC must file its brief before Oct. 24 with CTIA responding Nov. 3.
“Wireless carriers have been working overtime on the technical issues within our control. But, this isn’t something that can be done solo; it is up to the FCC to determine the rules of the game-including telling wireline carriers that portability applies to them, as well. We went to court only after the FCC didn’t answer a set of basic implementation issues. With this mandamus, we simply asked the court to the tell the FCC to make those decisions,” said CTIA President Thomas Wheeler.
