Local Number Portability Glitches Still There

from the keep-waiting dept

Now that nearly two months has passed since wireless local number portability went into effect in the US, it turns out that carriers are still having problems porting numbers in a timely fashion. There are eve a few cases where people who signed up back in November still don't have their numbers ported. The problems are being worked out, though, and are much less likely to occur these days. However, it is still taking a few days to port the number in most cases - which is way more than the 2.5 hours the FCC had told carriers it should take. For the time being, it looks like the FCC isn't taking the carriers to task for missing that mark. It's also interesting to note that all of the carriers report that portability has not been nearly as big an issue as they expected, with many fewer subscribers moving than were predicted. Of course, some might point out that the carriers who had the most to lose from number portability had every incentive in the world not to make the process very smooth - and to make sure everyone knew that it wasn't going to be smooth.
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  1. identicon
    Cowardly Anonymous, 23 Jan 2004 @ 6:58am

    Portability limited by contracts

    I know I'm gonna ditch my wireless provider and move my number. But not until July. Why wait? How about $150 in early termination fees?
    I'd imagine that's an issue for a lot of people, and is a big part of the reason we're not seeing more porting going on.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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