T-Mobile, Sprint Ask FCC to Make Porting Easy
T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel, the major wireless carriers not affiliated with Bells, asked the FCC to rule that LECs can’t impose what they call unnecessary impediments to porting numbers. The carriers asked the FCC to declare that carriers may not demand “information from requesting providers beyond that required to validate the customer request and accomplish the port.” The FCC needn’t impose more rules, they said, but must make clear it will enforce current rules.
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“Notwithstanding the unambiguous nature of the Commission’s directives, many incumbent LECs continue to impose requirements on requesting providers that go far beyond ‘necessary customer validation procedures,'” the companies said in a petition. “For example, most incumbent LECs require their competitors to request ports by submitting Local Service Requests (LSRs) that contain more than 100 data fields. Each incumbent LEC uses a different LSR, and LSRs are changed as many as four times each year without prior notice to other service providers.”
Wireless carriers have a far more streamlined process for porting numbers than ILECs, Sprint and T-Mobile said. Wireless carriers in general require only the phone number, account number and password and the porting process is usually wrapped up within 30 minutes, the carriers said.
“The problems faced by wireless and competitive LECs in completing ports from incumbent LECs that use non-standard and lengthy validation processes translate into considerable inconvenience for consumers attempting to switch their service provider,” they said. “Consumers frequently have to decide between utilizing a new provider immediately but changing numbers, or waiting a week or more to take their telephone numbers with them to the new carrier. Not surprisingly, many consumers simply give up.”
A company source said T-Mobile and Sprint had shared concerns for some time about the difficulty of porting numbers from LECs, and decided the time was ripe to make a filing. “Wireless carriers have been porting for 3 years and we've done it right,” the source said.