The Telecommunications Resellers Association has filed comments urging the Federal Communications Commission to reject a petition filed by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association requesting a five-year delay in the wireless number portability implementation deadline.
CTIA’s petition, filed in December following its previous request for a nine-month delay, asked for another five-year delay on the current July 1999 deadline on the grounds that carriers’ limited resources could be put to better use in building out networks.
“If you had to assign a priority, it (number portability) is simply not as important as buildout and other features that can be offered,” said Tim Ayers, a CTIA spokesman. “Our belief is that this has become less of a high priority as far as customer demand, and that there are other competitive issues that are more advantageous.
“Our board came to this conclusion after seeing how interested consumers are in number portability.”
TRA asserted the CTIA petition meets none of the legal standards required for the five-year exemption. Those standards outlined in the telecom act of 1996 are, first, that enforcement of the regulation is not necessary to ensure reasonable rates; second, that enforcement is not necessary to ensure protection of consumers; and third, that it is consistent with the public interest, said an attorney for TRA, David Sieradzki of Hogan & Hartson L.L.P., Washington, D.C. The CTIA petition fails to meet even one of these standards, Sieradzki charged.
CTIA attorneys feel the petition does meet the requirements, and that it is in line with “consumer demand and realities of the marketplace,” Ayers said.
“Now, and for the near future, the industry is in a massive buildout effort,” said Ayers. “The most important thing is for carriers to offer ubiquitous service, which is extraordinarily expensive.”
The FCC already has concluded that number portability is essential to protecting the “fundamental rights” of consumers to receive the benefit of full competition, TRA stated in its comments filed last week. The ability to change carriers without changing telephone numbers is essential to expanding not only competition within the wireless marketplace, but with wireline services, said the reseller’s group.
TRA said that the public interest in promoting LNP and wireless competition “far outweigh the CTIA’s concerns that implementing number portability would cost them too much money.” Using CTIA’s own statistics, TRA pointed out that the U.S. cellular, personal communications services and enhanced specialized mobile radio industries generated revenues of $25.6 billion last year, and that annual revenues grew by 19 percent from 1996 to 1997 and by nearly 300 percent since 1992.
“The evidence simply does not support the claim that the industry lacks the resources to support number portability,” said David Gusky, vice president and director of wireless services for TRA. “In addition, there is no guarantee that any money saved by delaying number portability would be used for network buildout, as CTIA claims, rather than increased company profits.”
