WASHINGTON-Regulators in both Washington and San Francisco Thursday began looking into problems with local number portability, with the Federal Communications Commission focusing on AT&T Wireless Services Inc. and a California state regulator calling for a broader review.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia refused a request to stop LNP until rules allowing for wireless-to-wireline porting could be implemented, but a court case challenging the plan to hold off on wireless-to-wireline will still move forward.
“I ask that you provide me information detailing the nature of the difficulties that AWS appears to be facing with regard to porting numbers to other carriers, and the steps your company is taking to address this issue. Please provide me with this information by next Wednesday, Dec. 10,” wrote John Muleta, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, in a letter sent and released late Thursday.
AWS spokeswoman Rochelle Cohen acknowledged porting problems but said, “we fully expected to encounter some bumps in the road, and we have, as have our competitors.”
The FCC’s letter came on the heels of an article Thursday morning in the Wall Street Journal where an AWS spokesman said that its porting error rate was about 60 percent, but claimed this was only slightly higher than the 50-percent industry average.
Muleta did not single out AWS during an appearance Thursday at the 21st Annual Telecommunications Regulations & Policy Institute sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute, but did say that the FCC had received some LNP complaints.
AWS’ problems began before the Nov. 24 LNP deadline when glitches occurred in the software to switch customers from its TDMA network to its GSM network.
Susan Kennedy, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, named no specific carriers. “I plan to monitor the experience of California customers and wireless companies with LNP. I hope the reports I have been receiving are temporary glitches. A company that fails to provide timely porting of telephone numbers to the carrier of the customer’s choosing should face a fine or some other sanction by this commission,” said Kennedy.
Kennedy listed horror stories of more than 10-day waits for porting to be completed and carriers requiring information to be faxed rather than automated.
“A carrier reportedly ‘lost’ thousands of requests for transfers, forcing those customers to wait days while the entire porting process was started over again,” said Kennedy.
State regulators, and California more specifically, have begun looking at how wireless carriers treat their customers. As a group, state regulators lobbied hard on Capitol Hill to ensure that WLNP was not delayed.
California is also considering a telecommunications users bill of rights that wireless carriers have claimed would add costs but not service quality for consumers.
Some state regulators, while supporting WLNP nevertheless granted limited waivers to smaller wireline carriers that said they were caught off guard by the requirement to port to wireless carriers without a presence in their rate centers. During Muleta’s PLI appearance, he said these waivers allowed for a “cooling-off period” and that he did not expect them to be long. He did express concern that some consumers may be confused if they try to cut the cord and find that state regulators are allowing the wireline carriers to prevent that.
The reaction to the D.C. Circuit’s decision was to be expected, with the wireline industry disappointed and the wireless industry-which only recently embraced WLNP-applauding it.
“While we are disappointed that the court will not temporarily delay porting between wireline and wireless carriers to ensure full competition for consumers, we look forward to the court’s review based on the merits of our appeal of the FCC’s discriminatory order,” said Walter McCormick, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Telecom Association.
“Congress and the FCC shared a clear message-wireline consumers deserve the same choices and freedoms that wireless consumers enjoy. Now that the courts have made the decision for full competition unanimous, we should put the legal wrangling behind us and continue to compete for consumers with better products, lower prices and innovative services,” said Steve Largent, president and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.
