WASHINGTON-Rural carriers have received few, if any, requests for customers to switch from wireline to wireless, according to a survey released Monday by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, which represents rural carriers.
“Results indicate strikingly minimal take rates for wireline-to-wireless local number portability, ranging from 0.04 percent for respondents serving more than 20,000 lines to 0.01 percent for those serving 1,000 or fewer lines,” said NTCA.
The survey was distributed earlier this year to NTCA’s membership with 63 percent-more than 350 members-responding.
NTCA said the survey results will be used in its lobbying efforts both at the Federal Communications Commission and on Capitol Hill.
“The information will be used as an example to show that the FCC sometimes adopts regulation without considering the impact on small carriers,” said Jill Canfield, NTCA senior regulatory counsel.
The NTCA survey results are in stark contrast to the cut-the-cord numbers from the FCC, which said in November that 10 percent of all the LNP ports were for wireline to wireless.
Rural carriers have consistently fought to get out of the LNP obligation altogether. Recently, rural local exchange carriers took their grievances to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit is expected to rule by summer.
The main complaint by rural carriers is that it is too expensive and cumbersome. Although wireline LNP had been in place for years before wireless LNP was instituted in November 2003, many rural carriers had not received porting requests so they had not made the necessary upgrades to institute LNP. These carriers were caught off guard when the FCC said all carriers must be able to port within six months of valid requests.
