Verizon Urges Same Porting, Marketing Rules for All
The FCC should address “significant marketing advantages” enjoyed by cable companies as it tackles local number portability issues, Verizon said in a Wednesday letter to acting Chairman Michael Copps. The company also lashed out at non-cable rivals, accusing some of breaking existing portability rules. Verizon competitors responded with vitriol.
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The letter comes with the FCC poised to vote on an order shortening the interval as early as its May meeting (CD April 13 p1). Verizon said it opposes shortening the number porting shot clock, but if the FCC does reduce it, the agency should “ensure that all providers comply with the same rules.” The telco urged the commission to “concurrently” unify marketing rules for phone and cable companies, and to ban cable from refusing to provide competitors access to regional sports programming.
Reducing porting times isn’t necessary, Verizon said. When a customer subscribes to a competitor’s phone service, the cable or other competitive provider usually sets an installation date more than four days in the future, it said. Verizon “completes all porting-out obligations by the date selected 99 [percent] of the time.” While many wireline phone users have cut the cord and gone wireless, few keep their phone numbers, Verizon said. “During the first three quarters of 2009, for example, wireline-to-wireless ports comprised only 1 [percent] of all ports.”
The real problem, said Verizon, is that rural, cable and some other providers are taking longer than four days. “Regardless of whether the Commission retains the current interval or shortens it, the Commission should make clear that all providers must comply with the same rules,” it said. “There is no reason why a customer leaving Verizon should enjoy a faster change in providers than a customer coming to Verizon, as is often the case today.”
Verizon’s letter also renewed arguments on retention marketing that were rejected by the FCC last year, and by a federal appeals court in February (CD Feb 11 p2). Verizon said it’s unfair that the FCC allows cable companies to market to video customers who call to cancel service, but bans Verizon from marketing to voice customers porting their number to a cable competitor. And cable companies continue to unfairly deny access to cable-owned regional sports programming, Verizon said. Until Verizon complained to the FCC, it couldn’t get any sports programs controlled by Cablevision, the phone company said. Now the cable company only provides the programming in standard definition, Verizon said. With “skyrocketing” consumer demand for high definition, “denying access to regional sports programming in HD is a direct attempt to handicap competitive entrants,” it said.
An NCTA spokesman fired back, calling the Verizon letter “a desperate attempt to hold onto any artificial advantage in an increasingly competitive marketplace where consumers finally have real choices.” The phone company “is once again trying to distract the Commission from implementing a simple rule change that will benefit consumers who are looking for a competitive phone provider,” he said. A spokeswoman for CompTel, representing competitive local exchange carriers, declined to comment.
T-Mobile, a long-time supporter of reducing the porting intervals, said the FCC shouldn’t be led astray by the Verizon letter. T-Mobile is expected to file a letter at the commission explaining its objections in more detail. “This is simply Verizon’s attempt to hold hostage pro-consumer benefits of speeding number porting, due to other unrelated disputes the company is having with the cable industry,” T- Mobile said.
“Consumer groups, members of Congress, and many telecommunications providers -- including incumbent wireline carriers like AT&T -- emphasize that the four-business-day porting interval, in place for more than a dozen years, significantly hinders competition and undermines the Commission’s directive that consumers can switch carriers with their numbers as easily as they can without their numbers.”
Meanwhile, AT&T supported reduction of the porting shot clock to two days in a meeting earlier this week with an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell. Like Verizon, it asked the FCC to apply porting rules to all types of providers. The agency should direct industry to work on a standardized process to port numbers, like the wireless industry has done, AT&T said. The North American Numbering Council should oversee development of the process, and report on its completion in “no more than six months,” the company said.