WASHINGTON-Some wireless carriers are hoping the fat lady has yet to sing.
Lobbyists staged a last-ditch effort to delay the Nov. 24 wireless local number portability mandate until after the holiday shopping season. The hope is to attach a rider to the bill that funds the Federal Communications Commission for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. However, it appears the rider lacks a sponsor.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters on Thursday that the FCC funding bill could be debated on the Senate floor early this week. The Senate is trying to wrap up all of the spending bills as soon as possible so it can adjourn for the year
The argument for the delay is that the controversial wireline-to-wireless provisions must be settled before WLNP can be implemented. Lobbyists say that it is not fair that wireline carriers may not be required to port some of their customers to wireless carriers unless the FCC acts.
Today wireline carriers are required only to port a number to a carrier with a presence in the same rate center-a geographic area used in the wireline context to determine how much a customer should be charged for a call. CTIA argues that this should be changed to require porting if a wireless carrier service area covers a rate center even if it does not have a switch in each rate center.
For their part, state regulators and consumer advocates are not giving up until they are sure the wireless industry cannot succeed in delaying the Nov. 24 deadline.
“The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners will remain vigilant. The wireless industry has already pulled off a double hat trick in delaying LNP until now; we do not want them to get a triple hat trick,” said James Bradford Ramsay, NARUC general counsel.
“This move is particularly disingenuous of the companies who have publicly told their customers they are prepared for Nov. 24 while they are privately negotiating 11th-hour deals to stave off competition,” said Jim Guest president and chief executive officer of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports. “Our question is simple: What are they so afraid of? Competition? This would be the fourth major delay of the FCC number portability rule, which initially was to go into effect in 1999. Implementation has repeatedly been postponed due to heavy industry lobbying at the FCC and in Congress. Meanwhile, consumers who have demanded the right to take their number with them when switching companies have been left dangling in the wind by unfulfilled promises.”
As of Thursday, WLNP supporters appeared to be ahead as Stevens, previously one of the staunchest supporters of delaying WLNP, told reporters that he does not support a delay at this time. Instead, he is waiting for a response to an Oct. 28 letter he sent to the FCC urging the agency to issue rules on wireline-to-wireless portability.
Several members of the Senate Commerce Committee joined Stevens in urging the FCC to “redouble its efforts” to issue wireline-to-wireless rules.
“We have a growing concern regarding the absence of clear and comprehensive rules that would allow consumers to port telephone numbers between wireline and wireless carriers. Such intermodal porting was clearly contemplated by the FCC when its initial order implementing LNP was issued in 1996 and is consistent with Congress’ stated goal under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 of opening the local exchange market to competition. Giving consumers the ability to port telephone numbers between competing telephone services will facilitate additional head-to-head competition between wireless and wireline providers,” wrote Stevens and Sens. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).
For his part, FCC Chairman Michael Powell told reporters that he has had several conversations with lawmakers regarding LNP, and that while he is not lobbying against a delay, when asked his opinion, he says he supports the Nov. 24 deadline for WLNP.
Some in the industry were quick last week to distance themselves from any delay.
“While we agree that the FCC could have better defined the rules of WLNP for the wireless industry, U.S. Cellular has made the investment and is ready to accommodate the needs of our customers,” said U.S. Cellular President John Rooney.
“The government has spoken, the courts have spoken and the customers of wireless companies have spoken loudest of all,” said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. “Let’s just get this done.”
The reluctance of senators to support a delay in WLNP became apparent just as a federal appeals court rejected a plea from AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and Cingular Wireless L.L.C. to require the FCC to either issue rules on wireline-to-wireless portability or delay WLNP.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the request in a one-paragraph opinion.
CTIA made a similar request of the D.C. Circuit. CTIA asked the FCC in January and again in May to resolve the wireline-to-wireless porting issues because it asserts that a main goal of LNP is wireline-to-wireless portability to increase competition in the residential landline market. It said the issues had to be resolved by Sept. 1 or LNP could not go forward as scheduled Nov. 24. When the commission did not respond, it asked the D.C. Circuit to order it to do so.
Briefs were filed last month in the CTIA case.
The FCC Oct. 24 said it is not dilly-dallying in responding to the CTIA request to set out criteria for wireline-to-wireless LNP. The commission told the D.C. Circuit that it is drafting a response to the wireline-to-wireless LNP issues, but it did not say when it would be released.
