FCC Shortens to 24 Hours Shot Clock for Most Ports

The FCC ordered the North American Numbering Council to complete within three months a study of porting procedures, and delayed the change for nine additional months for most carriers after the NANC completes its work. Small carriers get 15 months to comply. The commission also adopted a rulemaking notice asking about other ways it can further improve the interval, including whether it should apply the new shot clock to more than simple ports. Still to be seen, industry officials said, is whether faster ports will further accelerate local exchange carrier line loss.

NANC will start working on the order as soon as it’s released, Chairman Tom Koutsky told us. Its local number porting working group has a regularly scheduled meeting Thursday, and the order is expected to be the first topic discussed.

The order grew out of discussions among the commissioners over the past two weeks, an FCC official said. The original draft from the Wireline Bureau proposed a 48-hour shot clock, which became two business days in the draft circulated by acting Chairman Michael Copps. That could have meant that a change made late on a Friday wouldn’t take effect until the following Tuesday. Commissioners questioned whether the process couldn’t occur more quickly, especially given the long experience with quicker ports in the wireless industry. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein’s office was the first to formally propose a one-day port, as the order was being discussed at the FCC.

Agency officials took some comfort in the amount of time that carriers will have to comply, one said. Officials also felt that some of the companies that wanted a longer shot clock, like Verizon, will see benefits in the end since their wireless arms will pick up subscribers.

The four-day interval was set more than a decade ago, noted Adelstein. “That’s practically a lifetime,” given the fast pace of technological development, he said. One business day “strikes a balance” between implementation costs and consumer benefits, said Commissioner Robert McDowell. Providing carriers up to 15 months to implement the new process is a “generous and sensible glidepath,” he said.

Copps said there wasn’t much contention among commissioners on the number porting order. “We had a good discussion over it, weighing the pros and the cons,” he told reporters. “There was unanimity in trying to craft a pro- consumer item, and the question was how do you do that in an doable, achievable, pragmatic fashion.”

The FCC addressed concerns by small companies that achieving shorter ports would be too costly, said Julie Veach, acting Wireline Bureau chief. She declined to say whether the order provides any new recovery mechanism for the carriers. Copps told reporters there are existing recovery options available to carriers who have difficulty implementing the new interval.

NANC will examine porting “from the ground up,” Koutsky said. “I have been speaking to stakeholders … to get ourselves geared up and ready to take on the change. We knew that regardless of what the commission specifically ordered, as long as they ordered something we knew that we would need to make changes to our process flows and the way portability works in this country.”

Koutsky said he welcomed the tight deadline. “Even though it’s a change, it’s not a new issue,” he said. “The question about the porting interval has been before different iterations of the NANC on a somewhat regular basis … We're not working completely off blanks right now.”

An industry source who had urged a 24-hour shot clock said the only apparent negative is that the change won’t go into effect for more than a year. “We're extremely pleased with the one-day porting. … We're willing to make that trade given the importance of having the shortened period.”

The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association is “disappointed that the limited operational resources of small carriers will be stretched further by the shortened porting interval and that rural customers may ultimately bear the substantial costs of additional equipment and human resources required to comply with the FCC’s order,” said Jill Canfield, senior regulatory counsel. The group is “anxious” to read the order to assess its full impact, she said.

“Even with a six-month compliance extension, there still appears to be scant recognition that consumers are not always well served when rural carriers, which average 19 employees, are subject to the same rules as large, nationwide carriers,” said Steve Pastorkovich, a director at the Organization for the Promotion & Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies. “We will review the details of the Order, including any cost recovery provisions, and work with the NANC to minimize the impacts this requirement will have on consumers’ bills.”

USTelecom and Verizon also expressed concerns about the order. “While USTelecom supports the FCC’s efforts to reduce the time it takes to port numbers between providers, this involves a complex process and we will need to carefully review the order to determine its practicality and its effect on our members,” said President Walter McCormick. The group will look closely at how the FCC “has satisfied its specific statutory obligation to enable providers to recover costs for implementing these regulatory requirements,” he said.

“There will need to be adequate safeguards across the industry so these changes don’t put consumers at increased risk of losing their service,” Verizon said. The company urged the FCC to turn to ensuring regulatory parity when consumers switch between telephone and cable providers.

“T-Mobile applauds the leadership of the FCC today for reducing the … porting interval to one day,” said Tom Sugrue, vice president of government affairs at T-Mobile USA. “In doing so, the chairman and commissioners have acted in the best interest of consumers and competition.” NCTA called the order a “victory for consumers.” Sprint Nextel also welcomed it.