NARUC urged the FCC to turn down petitions and other claims by wi...
NARUC urged the FCC to turn down petitions and other claims by wireline carriers that would delay or suspend local number portability (LNP) requirements involving wireline-to- wireless porting. The claims are “either facially or procedurally deficient and should be…
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denied,” NARUC Gen. Counsel Bradford Ramsay told FCC Chmn. Powell in a letter. The Commission is expected to issue as early as today (Mon.) an order addressing remaining wireless-to-wireline LNP implementation issues. Wireless carriers face a Nov. 24 deadline for deploying LNP in the top 100 markets. One question in advance of the order’s release has been whether the FCC would take more time to decide the technical feasibility of certain aspects of wireless-to-wireline LNP, including scenarios in which a wireline customer took his or her number to a wireless carrier and then wanted to port it back to a LEC. Rural carriers and some other ILECs have raised concerns about the technical feasibility of porting wireless numbers outside a rate center. NARUC cited petitions filed by rural carriers including Franklin Telephone Co. and Inter-Community Telephone Co. seeking a waiver of obligations to provide LNP to requesting wireless carriers. NARUC said the waiver requests argued that those carriers qualified as so-called “2% carriers” under Sec. 251(f) of the Communications Act. The carriers said they fell under an exemption from certain requirements for rural phone companies involving the LNP obligations of LECs. NARUC urged the FCC to reject such claims. It said any claims for an exemption under Sec. 251(f) should be directed to state PUCs. That section controls whether a 2% carrier can receive an exemption to provide number portability under FCC requirements. “Under Sec. 251(f), the states may, but are not required, to suspend compliance with the existing LNP rules during the pendency of any petition,” NARUC said. It said LECS’ filings on wireless LNP compliance failed to make a case for delaying wireline LNP responsibilities. Since July 2002, LECs have been on notice that wireless carriers must start offering LNP Nov. 24, 2003. “The companies claim that the public interest would not be served by requiring them to implement LNP because there is no evidence that their customers wish to replace their wireline service with wireless service,” NARUC said. “The relevant question, however, is not whether the LEC customers wish to replace their wireline service with wireless, but rather whether they wish to port their wireline numbers to wireless carriers.” Porting of all wireline numbers to within any particular wireless provider’s local calling area now is technically feasible, NARUC said. “The same network infrastructure being used for pooling can be used for porting regardless of the rate center designation,” it said.