WASHINGTON — Mobile phone users should be able to keep their phone numbers if they switch to other wireless carriers, a federal court ruled Friday, rejecting an appeal from big U.S. cell phone providers.
The decision was a victory for consumer advocates who argued that denying consumers the right to keep their phone numbers inhibits competition by locking in customers who might otherwise change carriers. The companies now have until Nov. 24 to comply with the ruling.
The Federal Communications Commission first ordered number portability in 1996, with an initial deadline of June 1999. The deadline was extended three times by the FCC in response to requests from wireless firms. But their luck ran out with the latest appeal, by Verizon Wireless and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The court called the FCC's rule "permissible and reasonable" and said the industry lost the appeal at least partly because it was six years late in filing.
CTIA President Tom Wheeler said he was disappointed by the decision. He said that if the FCC doesn't provide more guidance on how number portability will work, "consumers will find chaos in the market."
While fighting the requirement, cell phone companies have been preparing to provide the service by creating technology, training workers and making agreements with competitors. Readiness varies among carriers.
Verizon Wireless, which has been working for months to meet the deadline, said it would push for Congress to undo the requirement.
"Requiring local number portability is bad public policy," the company said in a statement. "The resources required to fulfill this new mandate will unnecessarily be redirected from our core business activities: expanding network quality and reach, improving customer service, and initiating new services and products."
The wireless industry estimates that number portability will cost more than $1 billion in the first year and $500 million each year thereafter.
Chris Murray, an attorney for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, called the court ruling a "a big win for consumers." He said the lack of portability particularly harms small businesses and self-employed people because when switching carriers they lose numbers known by their customers.
Many cell phone users outside the United States, in places such as Britain, Australia and Hong Kong, already have the option of keeping their numbers when they switch carriers.
Wireless companies said that complying with the rule would be expensive and that competition in the industry is already intense enough. According to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, wireless subscription prices have fallen 30 percent in the last five years, and 30 percent of the 146 million wireless users in the country switch carriers annually; some estimates put the cost of complying with the FCC's rule at $1 billion and up.
Many carriers already have begun to implement the changes that will be required.
"But there's still a lot of work to do," said Tom Bullotta at Acumen Solutions, a technology consulting firm in Vienna, Va., that has worked with carriers on the issue. But he said carriers may try to recoup the expense involved in complying with the rule by reducing the discounts on cell phones that many wireless subscribers now enjoy.
Although Friday's decision appears to have exhausted the wireless carrier industry's options in court, "I don't expect them to give up till November 24," said Anne Boyle, head of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, who has been active in efforts to let mobile phone customers transfer phone numbers. "I am not willing to rest easy until that day arrives."
Now that the court has upheld the FCC's order, wireless carriers are saying they need clearer rules about how the process will work and have issued a deadline of their own: The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association says it needs more information by Labor Day.
"There are literally dozens and dozens of variables that need to be worked out," said Travis Larson, a spokesman for the association.
Contributing: Associated Press.