WASHINGTON-Rural wireless carriers cannot refuse to port a telephone number to another wireless carrier that does not have an interconnection agreement with them, the Federal Communications Commission ruled last week.
“The FCC held that wireless-to-wireless porting does not require the wireless carrier receiving the number to be directly interconnected with the wireless carrier that gives up the number or to have numbering resources in the rate center associated with the ported number. Although wireless carriers may voluntarily negotiate interconnection agreements with one another, such agreements are not required for wireless-to-wireless porting,” said the FCC. “In cases where wireless carriers cannot reach an agreement on the terms and conditions of porting, they must port numbers upon receipt of a valid request, with no conditions.”
Rural wireless carriers, which fear that nationwide players will steal customers, have said porting outside of a rate center is unacceptable. A rate center is a geographic area used in the wireline context to determine how much a customer should be charged for a call.
The wireless-to-wireless porting rules resolve some of the outstanding issues facing the wireless industry as it races toward a Nov. 24 deadline to implement wireless local number portability in the top 100 metropolitan service areas. The FCC said it would issue rules on wireline-to-wireless porting later.
“With the deadline only 49 days away, the FCC still has not answered some basic implementation questions,” said Tom Wheeler, president and chief executive officer of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. “The commission has simultaneously managed to tie the industry’s hands and hold our feet to the fire.”
The guidance was necessary after most of the industry, including CTIA, rejected a letter from John Muleta, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, sent to John Scott, Verizon Wireless deputy general counsel, earlier this year.
Despite the FCC’s action, FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy warned consumers not to expect a rosy world come Nov. 24.
“There is no doubt that as wireless LNP is implemented, customers will benefit from the ability to port their numbers to whatever wireless or wireline service provider they choose,” said Abernathy. “Nonetheless, despite the best efforts of the FCC and the industry to ensure that WLNP is fully implemented, there is a potential for operational problems to arise, as can happen with the rollout of any new technology.”
