Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Cellphone Industry Fights Number-Portability Push

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2003 14:50:50 -0500

Cellphone Industry Fights Number-Portability Push

By MARK WIGFIELD
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -- The mobile-phone industry's
trade association outlined a federal policy agenda
Wednesday that ranges from fighting an increasing
call for regulation of the industry to seeking faster
depreciation of cell-site equipment.

The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet
Association, or CTIA, will also continue to fight on
two fronts a requirement that mobile-phone
providers enable customers to take their phone
numbers with them when they switch carriers.

CTIA (www.ctia.org) next week will file a petition
asking that the FCC suspend a Nov. 24 deadline to
comply with the rule until the agency first changes the
rules for the wireline telephone industry.

While wireline companies must also provide
local-number portability, they must do so only within
limited "rate centers," according to CTIA President
Tom Wheeler . Since wireless switches generally
cover several rate centers, customers who want to
go completely wireless often can't import their
wireline phone number to their wireless phone, Mr.
Wheeler says.

But the FCC has extended the deadline three times
already and indicated that the November deadline
would be final.

The CTIA is also challenging the rule in the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which
will hear oral arguments in the case in April. Joining
Verizon Wireless Inc., a partnership between
Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group
PLC, the CTIA is basing its suit on two recent court
rulings which found that the FCC overstepped its
bounds when it imposed rules without concluding
they are necessary to competition or explicitly
required by Congress.

The CTIA has argued that the rule will cost the
industry $1 billion to implement, and is unnecessary
in an industry where one-third of the customers find
new carriers every year. State public utility
commissions have disputed that figure, noting that
wireless carriers had to implement some of the
changes anyway to comply with another FCC rule
meant to conserve telephone numbers.

Mr. Wheeler said the association will also fight efforts by the states to regulate the
industry. A patchwork
of state regulations will balkanize service and be "one of the worst anticonsumer ideas to
come along,"
Mr. Wheeler said.

His comments came days after the influential Consumer Reports magazine criticized weak FCC
oversight
of the industry and noted that a wireless "bill of rights" being drafted by the California
Public Utilities
Commission could force the industry to change its policies nationwide.

The proposal provides for clear disclosure of rates and terms on the Internet, privacy
protections, and
consumer-friendly bills.

Write to Mark Wigfield at [email-masked]
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB104205893740198904-search,00.html?collection=wsjie%2F30day&vql_string=+Tom+Wheeler%3Cin%3E%28article%2Dbody%29

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