The wide impact of WNP

Late June marked the fifth anniversary of the FCC’s (www.fcc.gov) first report and order on telephone number portability. Basic local number portability is up an running for wireline carriers – more than 16 million customers have switched carriers and kept their number.

Wireless number portability (WNP) is mandated to arrive on Nov. 24, 2002. For years, wireless carriers have been hearing how WNP will affect nearly every element of their operations; as the deadline inches closer, the reality of that warning is setting in.

Several carrier representatives who attended a recent WNP seminar got a heavy dose of that reality. Speakers from Illuminet (www.illuminet.com), the seminar’s organizer, and Evolving Systems (www.evolving.com) outlined the who, what, when, where and how of delivering portability. Maggie Lee, Illuminet number portability senior technical analyst, made an impression when she related one carrier’s WNP-impact study that determined payroll would be the only system left untouched by portability.

Indeed, portability education will need to reach carrier employees who probably haven’t even heard of WNP. Sales teams will need guidance as to when porting is and isn’t an option for potential customers. Hours of operation will be an early hurdle – time zone differences could leave an East-coast carrier trying to wake a West-coast carrier to conduct the porting process.

A representative for one small carrier asked what would happen on Saturdays when that carrier’s stores are closed but those of nationwide carriers are open. Lee said a possible solution for time-related issues would be to have standardized timeframes for when porting can and can’t occur. For example, porting could not occur between 6 a.m. and noon on weekdays.

With WNP, carriers that are gaining and losing each others’ customers will have to communicate to complete each port. To make things easier, the inter-carrier communications process will use a clearinghouse to facilitate and validate porting requests. The old carrier will have 30 minutes to respond to a porting request. If no response is given, the recipient carrier will proceed with the port.

CTIA (www.wow-com.com) decided against using a single clearinghouse for WNP; there will be several and the industry will define their requirements.

Contracts were another topic of discuss. If a customer is under contract with a carrier and decides to churn and port to another, it will be up to the customer and the old carrier to settle any contract termination fees; recipient carriers won’t necessarily ask customers if they are under contract with their old carrier.

CTIA will hold a WNP and Number Pooling Critical Issues Forum July 18-19 in Baltimore. The forum targets all U.S. carriers and will feature speakers from AT&T Wireless, Cingular, CIBERNET, Illuminet, NeuStar, Telcordia, TSI and NCS Pearson. For more information, visit www.wow-com.com