Now Cingular Is Complaining On Behalf Of Customers?
While Verizon Wireless seems to be bending over backwards trying to show customers just how much they love the idea of wireless number portability, Cingular is going in the opposite direction. A couple weeks ago they were whining about how much it's going to cost them to implement. It's not surprising they didn't get much sympathy, especially when the number they gave was more than 6X the amount Verizon Wireless claimed it would cost them - and last I checked Verizon Wireless was bigger than Cingular. So, now, Cingular is trying out the "we're concerned for the consumer" trick in trying to push back implementing number portability. They're saying that the customer experience is going to be terrible and consumers will get pissed. Again, this seems like an implementation issue for Cingular. If they can't implement the system to make the hand-off seamless, then that's their fault - not the whole concept of number portability. Cingular is doing a very bad job dragging their feet on this, which suggests they realize just how badly their customers want to move to other carriers.
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