Can You Take it With You?

As wars go, the battle between the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association and the U.S. Telecom Association over number portability looks more like a border skirmish. But it could still have serious implications for wireless and wireline carriers, not to mention their customers.

Here's where it stands: In December 2002, the CTIA asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to set aside the FCC's implementation of wireless-to-wireless number portability, which is scheduled to begin in November. The implementation has already been delayed three times, but the CTIA said this time it's different because it marks the first time a court will decide whether the FCC has the authority to mandate number portability outside of wireline-to-wireless.

Although the CTIA would like to see wireless number portability go away altogether, it at least wants the FCC to delay implementation until it rules on the wireline-to-wireless portability issue. Doug Brandon, vice president of federal affairs for AT&T Wireless, said wireline-to-wireless portability is a must if the FCC truly wants to see facilities-based competition develop in local voice markets.

“Wireless is the last hope for facilities-based competition — CLECs aren't getting there,” Brandon said. “For that to happen, we need wireline-wireless portability. People aren't going to make their wireless phone their primary phone if they can't take their home number with them.”

According to CTIA General Counsel Michael Altschul, the Telecom Act requires wireline carriers to port numbers to “any requesting carrier.” The problem, from the CTIA's perspective, is that the FCC has interpreted “portability” to mean within a specific wireline rate center. In other words, wireline carriers don't have to port numbers to carriers outside a rate center, and wireless carriers currently are co-located only in about one out of every eight rate centers, Altschul said.

With reply comments on portability due to the FCC after press time, no wireline carriers would discuss the topic or its potential effects on their businesses. But Lawrence Sarjeant, the USTA's vice president of law and general counsel, said focusing wireline number portability on the rate center makes perfect sense because it's the basic unit of measurement when defining local exchange carrier markets. He added that it would be unfair for the FCC to force wireline-to-wireless portability on incumbent carriers at this point because wireline carriers would have to develop new architectures that would allow them to port outside their rate center — a costly proposition.

Ironically, that's pretty much the same rationale that wireless carriers are using to shout down wireless number portability in their own sector.