WASHINGTON-The wireless policy-making world will ring in 2003 in much the same way it rang in 2002: by debating the merits of wireless local number portability.
In the final days before Christmas, the Federal Communications Commission found itself being pressured by a senator and state regulators to remove the bona fide request requirement for the implementation of wireless local number portability, while the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and Verizon Wireless Inc. were telling the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the FCC had erred when it merely delayed requiring LNP rather than removing the requirement.
“The [FCC’s] bona fide request rule makes this feature contingent upon the industry’s willingness to implement it. It is clear, however, that most carriers are not interested in implementing number portability since they have asked the commission to waive the requirement altogether. By making number portability contingent upon bona fide requests from other carriers, the [FCC] will allow wireless providers to lock in users, eliminating any incentive for providers to improve service in an industry that by consumer accounts is not delivering on its promises,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). “In the interest of fostering a truly competitive environment and improving customer choice, I urge you to eliminate the bona fide request rule for the top 100 [metropolitan service areas] for all non-rural carriers and to maintain the November 2003 deadline for all wireless carriers to implement local number portability.”
“Congress got it right. Otherwise it will needlessly raise costs without helping competition,” said Michael Altschul, CTIA senior vice president and general counsel. Altschul explained that when Congress required LNP for the wireline industry as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, it said wireline carriers needed to request LNP or a lot of money would be spent for a requirement that would not be used.
The wireless industry in July won a one-year extension on the wireless LNP rule but Verizon Wireless and CTIA are fighting the Nov. 24, 2003, deadline in court. They filed their brief in the case on Dec. 23.
The [FCC] “read the word `necessary’ to mean useful or helpful and interpreted the phrase `in protection of consumers’ to authorize any regulation that might confer some benefit in the future. … These errors caused the FCC to deny forbearance from a rule requiring wireless carriers to deploy the capability to offer [LNP] based not on an assessment of whether the rule is necessary today, but rather based upon rank speculation that it might promote competition or consumer welfare at some future date. Given that the wireless industry has spawned vigorous price and service competition without this regulatory mandate, and that customers continue to switch carriers at high rates of frequency, had the FCC applied the proper test it would have been compelled to forbear from its wireless LNP mandate,” said Verizon Wireless and CTIA.
Wireless carriers for the most part are scared of LNP because of the churn many analysts believe will occur if a high-volume customer can switch carriers and keep the same telephone number.
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents state regulators, has been fighting for the implementation of LNP because it believes it will improve service quality and increase the quantity of telephone numbers available. James Bradford Ramsay, NARUC’s general counsel, said he spoke with Lisa Zaina, legal adviser to FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, about NARUC’s concerns and argued the FCC should keep the Nov. 24, 2003, mandate.
Oral argument in the court case is scheduled for April 15, 2003.
