Subject: [NEXTEL-1] One Phone Number, to Go

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 23:19:21 -0400

One Phone Number, to Go

By Yuki Noguchi
Staff Writer
Washington Post Staff Writer

September 27, 2003

Nov. 24 is a day many cell-phone users have been dreaming about. The fantasy goes
like this: On that morning, customers living in the 100 biggest cities in the
country will be able to walk into a competing wireless carrier's store, sign up
for service, and have their old phone number transferred, without interruption, to
the new phone that day. 

No need to reprint business cards, no need to e-mail the new number to family
members and friends. 

The long-awaited, long-delayed onset of "wireless number portability" sounds good,
but consumer groups warn that the reality may be more like this: The customer
walks into the new carrier's store and is told he can't switch services until he
talks to his old carrier. After he waits in line behind all the holiday shoppers,
he gets interrogated by the other company, which tells him he must settle his
outstanding bill and pay a fee to switch. Once he coughs up the cash, his phone
goes dead for several hours -- or more -- until both firms' computers process the
change. 

More than half of Americans -- 150.2 million, according to the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association -- now subscribe to a wireless phone
service, and although consumers will benefit from the Federal Communications
Commission rules that make it easier to switch cell-phone services, those
advantages will exact their own price. 

Most consumers already pay a monthly fee, between 32 cents and $1.75, to their
provider for the future privilege of keeping their number. (T-Mobile and Verizon
Wireless say they don't bill separately for the expense of supporting number
transfers, but they do add on other regulatory costs.)

Wireless companies could also require departing customers to pay switching fees to
take their number with them -- although all the wireless providers deny any such
plans. 

There are other, more specific quirks about how somebody would move a number
between carriers: 

-- Leaving a wireless carrier before your contract expires has always triggered a
penalty of $150 or more, and the new FCC (news - web sites) regulations don't
change that. Make sure you're not still covered by a contract before you think
about trying to take your number elsewhere. 

-- If you want to keep your old number when you switch carriers, you should not
cancel your old service first. Set up a new account with the new carrier, and the
old plan will be closed once the number is transferred. 

-- Even when you keep your phone number, you probably won't be able to keep the
actual phone. Most carriers sell phones that work only with their networks. 

The idea behind the number-portability mandate -- first considered by the FCC in
1996 -- is not just to reduce the number of times people have to update their
address books but also to foster the rivalry among wireless providers. 

"What we want is to encourage as much competition as possible," and the new rules
are designed to do that, said John B. Muleta, chief of the FCC's wireless bureau.
That's what's happened in other countries that let customers take their wireless
numbers with them. 

When Hong Kong's six major wireless carriers started letting users keep their
numbers in 1999, customers began changing their service once every 10 months on
average, and prices fell, said David Meredith, a vice president of the consulting
firm American Management Systems Inc. 

Already in the United States, each year about a third of all cell-phone
subscribers switch carriers, and number portability could boost that statistic to
40 percent by next year. Carriers spend more than $400 on average to attract each
customer, Meredith said, so they'll have to step up their efforts to keep
customers, with more attractive price plans and longer contract terms. 

"It's going to be an arms race. The smart customer may actually come out ahead on
this," Meredith said, if he carefully compares the rewards and drawbacks of
contracts.

Some carriers are still fighting the deadline in court. AT&T Wireless, Cingular
and Alltel are challenging the FCC's authority to impose number-portability rules
in a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, although analysts
doubt any decision will push back the Nov. 24 deadline. 

Verizon Wireless was once of the same opinion as these carriers, but it shifted
stances this summer, when studies showed it would probably gain customers as a
result of number portability. 

And it's not just the wireless world that will feel the effects of these new
rules. Although the FCC mandate does not specifically require that consumers be
able to transfer numbers between wireless and conventional phones,
telecommunications firms are moving to make that possible. This could lead more
customers to get rid of their regular phones in favor of cellular service. 

"I think it will certainly increase the move toward substituting wireless for
wire-line phones," although cell phones can be less reliable than conventional
phones for dialing 911 or during power outages, said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst
with Legg Mason.

But the rules here are less clear-cut than for wireless-to-wireless number
transfers, owing to, among other things, different definitions of what's "local"
between conventional phone companies and cellular carriers that might block some
number swaps. 

"The regulatory guidelines are just not there" for land-line-to-wireless
transfers, said Thomas E. Wheeler, president and chief executive of the Cellular
Telecommunications & Internet Association. 

On Thursday, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ordered the FCC to clarify
its rules. 

The agency plans to offer more detailed guidelines to help carriers set rules for
transfers from conventional phones to wireless, and vice versa, in the next couple
of weeks. But the FCC is also encouraging carriers to work out agreements among
themselves. 

Last week, for instance, Verizon Wireless and its parent company, Verizon
Communications Inc., said they will be able to move numbers back and forth.

Meanwhile, wireless carriers are still ironing out the details of wireless number
transfers -- for example, how to make sure a customer request doesn't get hung up
if one company spells an address using "Street" while another uses "St." 

"We're making sure all that stuff works," said Dahna Hull, Cingular's director of
marketing. "But there's likely to be some glitches," she added, especially in the
first few days after Nov. 24.

Consumer groups continue to worry that companies will use this complexity as an
excuse to obstruct users from switching. 

"Carriers are going to adopt a strategy that will make it as difficult and
expensive for customers to leave," said Carl Hilliard, president of Wireless
Consumers Alliance Inc. "It's a very creative industry; they'll come up with ways
to keep customers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8354-2003Sep27.html

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