FCC Imposes LNP Requirements for Interconnected VoIP
The FCC approved Wednesday an order 5-0 expanding local number portability (LNP) requirements to interconnected VoIP providers. The order seems to be a victory for wireless carriers that have complained about excessive data requests from their wireline competitors to port numbers, saying future ports will require only four data points. Only a news release and commissioners’ statements had been released at our deadline. The FCC also asked questions about porting rules in an accompanying rulemaking.
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“It is too early to know whether the FCC has given VoIP providers the tools they need to efficiently and seamlessly speed the porting process,” Jim Kohlenberger, executive director of the VON Coalition, told us. One wild card, he said, is that the FCC has yet to grant VoIP providers access to telephone numbers, despite several petitions asking the agency to do so. VoIP carriers have to rely on CLEC partners that do have access to numbering resources for access to numbers. Six VoIP operators, starting with Vonage in March 2005, have asked for access to numbers.
“I believe they are pushing that decision down the road,” Kohlenberger said. “Without access to telephone numbers, the details of what they have written will be important because it will take cooperation by a number of parties that all need to be able to work in a coordinated fashion with joint responsibility.”
“In speaking with providers, they are generally neutral to favorable on the item depending on the details,” said an attorney active on VoIP issues. “It obviously cuts both ways, but it’s not as if VoIP providers haven’t been porting even in the absence of a specific requirement. To the extent it imposes some requirements on the suppliers further down the supply chain, it will actually be quite helpful for providers and consumers alike.”
Wireless industry sources said the FCC apparently has sided with wireless carriers led by T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel, which last December asked the FCC to require streamlined porting between wireless and wireline and other combinations of phone service. CTIA supported the petition. Wireless carriers complained they must sometimes fill in more than 100 data fields to complete a port. The FCC said in its news release that the order prohibits carriers from interfering with number porting by demanding excessive information from the customer’s new provider. The carrier need complete only four data fields -- the phone number, customer account number, five-digit ZIP code and pass code, when applicable.
“For far too long the local phone companies have frustrated both consumers and competitors by making the process of moving your telephone number to a wireless carrier more difficult and more complicated than it needed to be,” Sprint said in a statement. “With today’s actions, the FCC made that process easier for consumers and carriers.”
The FCC said the order also deals with a 2005 stay of the agency’s intermodal number portability order by the District of Columbia Circuit, which required the commission to analyze the effect of its requirements on small companies under the Regulatory Flexibility Act.
Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein concurred in the order, expressing concerns that the FCC had failed to deal with critical intercarrier compensation questions raised in the appeals court challenge. “While this order checks a box by completing the final analysis required by the RFA, we miss an opportunity here to address the some of the critical and expensive underlying issues -- such as the transport costs associated with calls to ported numbers -- that are exacerbated by our porting requirements,” he said.
Commissioner Michael Copps said the order should promote competition. “We do a lot of things like streamlining the port validation process, ask some good questions,” he said. “A lesson to be learned from local number portability is that the commission should be seeking out additional ways to break down barriers that impede consumers from taking advantage of competition such as wireless and broadband early termination fees and the locking of phone features.”
“Our action today… fosters regulatory parity,” Commissioner Robert McDowell said. “Just as we have previously required interconnected VoIP providers to comply with obligations for E-911, universal service, customer proprietary network information protections and disability access, extending our local number portability requirements levels out the regulatory landscape even further.”
“I think this is another example of the commission trying to remove barriers to competition for consumers and also making sure that our rules are equal across the different platforms,” Chairman Kevin Martin said.