Despite claims by wireless carriers that they will be prepared for wireless local number portability by the Nov. 24 deadline, an industry analyst’s report released last week called into question carriers’ readiness for the WLNP mandate and suggested enterprise customers hold off on number porting until at least next spring.
The Mobile Competency report, “Wireless Number Portability: This Ain’t Y2K,” ranked the nation’s six largest wireless carriers in WLNP preparedness, noting that while Nextel Communications Inc., Sprint PCS and Verizon Wireless were the most prepared for porting enterprise customers with little or no service disruption, they are still only about 50-percent ready to fully comply with the mandate.
Bob Egan, Mobile Competency founder and president, noted the report takes into account interviews with the six nationwide carriers to assess their abilities to provide enterprise customers with quick, glitch-free ports and a smooth transition of key services, including wireless data. The report noted that one month before the WLNP deadline, no major carrier had completed testing with all five of its largest rivals.
Egan added that while carriers are finally getting serious about WLNP, the industry is quickly running out of time to ensure hassle-free porting.
“We don’t see any evidence that individual carriers, let alone the industry as a whole, have done the extensive testing necessary to ferret out the major problems before Nov. 24,” Egan explained. “It’s too little, too late, so enterprise customers should wait.”
A handful of carriers have announced so-called service-level agreements with some of their competitors in an attempt to smooth the porting process, with T-Mobile USA Inc. the only carrier to have announced SLAs with all of its nationwide competitors. Both Cingular Wireless L.L.C. and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. are expected to announce additional SLAs this week.
Egan noted that even with SLAs in place, there is no guarantee carriers have gone through all of the steps necessary to competently port numbers in a timely manner. Egan warns that it takes two well-prepared carriers to make a successful port, and so far, only a handful of carriers are ready.
In addition, Egan predicts that when porting troubles arise, and most analysts expect they will, the blame will be rightly spread among most of the parties involved in WLNP.
“If port fails en masse, don’t be surprised when the wireless industry blames the [Federal Communications Commission] for both moving the deadline to the worst possible time of the year and failing to craft rules that address every possible scenario,” Egan said. “There’s plenty of blame to go around, but at the end of the day, that’s cold comfort for enterprise subscribers whose mobile phones stop working.”
Some analysts have noted that the possibility of failed porting could prove beneficial in curtailing a mass of wireless subscribers from attempting to switch carriers on Nov. 24.
While enterprise customers are being warned to avoid switching carriers until the bugs are worked out of the system, a consumer survey by MyRatePlan.com found that Verizon Wireless will likely be the big winner of WLNP, with 26 percent of respondents to its online survey claiming they plan to move to the nation’s largest carrier once the mandate is implemented later this month.
T-Mobile USA was reported as a distant second with 11 percent of respondents saying they plan a move to the smallest of the country’s nationwide operators, followed by AT&T Wireless at 9.1 percent, Nextel at 7.1 percent, and Cingular and Sprint PCS tied for fifth with 6.2 percent each. On a positive note for those carriers that scored on the low end of the survey, 31.3 percent of respondents said they are still undecided as to which carrier will be their new service provider.
The survey also found that coverage was the most important reason for switching for most customers, followed by 30 percent who claimed price.
With analysts and consumer surveys attempting to hash out what sort of impact WLNP will have on the industry, carriers continued their consumer-facing preparations last week with a number of small policy and rate plan changes designed to keep current subscribers and attract new ones.
Verizon Wireless added between 100 and 200 bonus minutes on its America’s Choice rate plans beginning at $60 per month, as well as unlimited calling between family members on its Family Share Plans. In addition, the carrier has reintroduced its $40 per month for 1,000 local anytime minutes rate plan, which was offered during the holidays last year.
Following a stronger-than-expected third quarter that some analysts are predicting will not be matched during the fourth quarter, Cingular began offering 500 additional rollover minutes on rate plans beginning at $40 per month that can apply any time during the first year of service on a two-year contract.
Similar to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless began offering between 50 and 100 bonus anytime minutes on its mLife National rate plans beginning at $40 per month. The carrier also introduced its 90-Day Best Deal Promise, which allows customers who sign up for service after Nov. 2 to change calling plans within 90 days of service activation without penalty or need for contract renewal if the company chooses to offer a better deal on qualified plans.
AT&T Wireless is also rumored to be widening its customer retention efforts later this month when it re-launches its mMode data offering with what is expected to be an unlimited access rate plan for $20 per month. The carrier currently offers tiered pricing for its mMode service that tops out at $20 per month for eight megabytes of data transmission.
Nextel, which has traditionally stayed above the holiday pricing fray, introduced a pair of aggressively priced rate plans at the $50 per month and $70 per month price points, offering either 500 or 1,000 anytime cellular calling minutes, unlimited nationwide Direct Connect calls and unlimited night and weekend calling minutes. The plans are expected to prove appealing as the price-per-minute on the cellular calls in a few cases are less expensive than some of its nationwide competitors in addition to offering unlimited Nationwide Direct Connect that had previously been a $10 premium.
Following a number of changes last month to its rate plans, Sprint PCS kept a low profile last week except for the broader availability of an Area-Wide Plan, which includes 1,000 anytime and unlimited night and weekend calling minutes beginning at $45 per month. The carrier is expected to ratchet up the pricing pressure in the next several weeks with add-a-phone incentives and an option rolling back the start of nighttime calling from 9 p.m. to 7 p.m.
T-Mobile USA, which is still the most aggressively priced nationwide carrier, stayed out of the rate plan changes last week following the introduction of its unlimited three-day weekend calling plan late last month.
