When last we left wireless carriers, back in July ’02, they were cheering the FCC for delaying number portability, though sobbing mightily, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, that it was still scheduled to go into effect in November ’03.
The lobbying pot has been at a low simmer since then, and now it’s up to a rapid boil — with a twist, because the wireless carriers are being joined in their efforts by their arch-rivals, the land line phone companies.
Number portability would mean that your cell phone number belongs to you. If you decided that Verizon’s service sucked, and you wanted to switch over to Cingular, you could, and you wouldn’t have to replace your business cards, send change-of-number notes to your friends or anything like that. Your number would follow you, the same as if you change long distance carriers at home.
Egads! say the wireless carriers. That will cost billions to implement! And, um, er, besides, ah, we need to make ourselves tie into the 911 system properly (even though we’ve fought against that, too), and we don’t have the programmers to do both projects. That’s our story, and we’re sticking to it!
What about competition? But the wireless industry is already highly competitive! they cry. Look! Almost a quarter of all customers change carriers each year! See how competitive we are?
Do you think that would mean even more people might change if it weren’t such a hassle to change numbers?
Don’t even say that in jest, man!
As I said, the wire/land-line carriers are getting into the act, too. That’s because they just noticed that there’s a provision in the regulations that would let someone transfer their land line number over to a wireless carrier. Since the land line carriers are already smarting at those people (about 3% thus far) who are going all-wireless at home, they certainly don’t want to do anything that would make that any easier.
So far, the FCC is sticking by its guns. I hope it continues to do so. This is a “regulatory burden” I think makes a lot of sense.
(via BoingBoing)