Re: Portability Issues (was: cell phones & do not call) [telecom]

As it happened, I passed a CO building today that serves multiple rate centers.

The building is near the city line. It serves both city exchanges and suburban exchanges. Although everything comes out of one building, the rates for the two sets are very different; one is suburban, one is city.

The city customers can call anywhere in the city untimed at level 1. The suburban customers may call only adjacenet city areas at level 1, everything else is level 2 or above. If the suburban customers want a city phone number (as many do to avoid message unit charges), they have to pay FX charges. (Level 1 is one untimed unit for msg rate customers, free for others).

Now, the message unit charges have been significantly reduced in recent years, but the basic arrangement remains to this day. Indeed, there are other buildings in the city that also have that arrangement with a nearby suburb.

We must remember that these kinds of rates and tarrifs were set up many years ago by the PUC as they saw best for 'universal service', not necessarily to match rates with costs, indeed, PUCs often didn't want to do that. City customers got a break, partly because high density meant greater efficiency, and partly because it was perceived that suburbanites were more affluent and could pay more (which was generally true.)

As an aside, the city post office did likewise with some suburban places--giving their mail out of a nearby city post office, and using the same city zip code. In recent years, many suburbanites objected to having a city zip code and pressured the post office to give them their own zip code. This was because ratables are done by zip code and suburbanites didn't like lower ratings from a city zip. I can't blame for that.

Does "exchange" mean rate center or wire center?

I know the difference, but when I complained to my state's public utility commission about lies from SBC/AT&T, I got more lies about why my number couldn't be moved to a different RATE center.

My story: I requested local number portability from one location to another, both within the Chicago metropolitan area. The initial lie I was given was that the FCC portability regulations PROHIBIT SBC/AT&T from letting me keep my telephone number.

When I mentioned that the portability database is nothing more than a database dip and could easily be used to redirect where the number terminates, that's when they told me the lie.

When I asked about alternatives, they offered to let me have voice mail without a land line but for merely 180 days. When I asked for other alternatives, they offered none. I even knew to ask about foreign exchange service, which they claimed was no longer offered. I even knew to request to be transferred to the milage clerk who is trained to write up such an order; they claimed they no longer existed.

For amusement, I passed the lie along to my state PUC which got a laugh out of it. The "executive callback center" finally called me back today, but the clerks hadn't bothered to look into the situation at all. I then asked for a callback from someone familiar with number portability, but instead got a supervisor who gave me the "different rate center" excuse.

Two different clerks claimed that land line to cell portability is possible because "cell phones use towers". While cell phones really don't have a central office concept, they still have some machine analogous to a switch that interfaces with the telephone network. All the telephone company is doing when porting a number to cell is sending calls to that interface point.

Then two different clerks claimed that cell telephone numbers could NOT be ported to land line with this excuse: because cell numbers don't have rating points! Actually, that's not true. The concept has almost no use when rating a call originating on a cell phone since so many cell phone plans charge long distance as plan minutes, the same as local calls, but a call into the cell phone may be rated according to the cell phone's rate center.

If a subscriber has a cell phone whose rate center is near the billing address, that's merely coincidence since so few subscribers would even know to ask for such a number and fewer still would care.

Oh yeah.

Name names. Whom do I request this from? I've already gone to the state PUC and that still didn't get me a truthful answer.

I'd do something along those lines if I could get a straight answer from someone at the phone company that they'd do it, without insisting on putting the original phone number back into its original geographic area.

You make an interesting point about cable companies have only one "wire center", but do they not split it up into rate centers? Does cable phone service have to file for a tariff to establish rate center boundaries with the state public utility commission?

That has been my assumption all along, but I can't get anyone at AT&T/SBC to admit that it's the case.

I've attempted to point this out too.

One, the other, or both. Depends on context.

How do you know it was a "lie"? Where does it say landline numbers CAN be moved to _different_ rate centers?

AFAIK (as far as I know) and from what others have said, you cannot move a landline phone number to a _ different_ rate center. With good reason, as it could give you and people who call you an unfair rate discount.

If someone believe landlines are freely portable to different locations, could you provide a citation?

I believe Chicago, both city and suburbs, consists of multiple rate centers.

AFAIK, it is not "easily redirect the number" for landlines. If someone were to call 311-555-2368, the network switches the call to the 311-555 exchange, and the network is done. The remaining routing is done by the local exchange.

I'm surprised FX service is no longer offered since I know of many people who have it elsewhere. There is also a remote call forwarding service that many people have. With that, you get a listed local number in an area, and all calls are automatically forwarded to where you actually are (you of course pay for toll or message unit charges, if any.)

It's more complicated than that. Cell phones by definition are portable--you do not have to be in your 'home' exchange to get a cell phone call; you can be anywhere and the system will find you. That makes portability simpler.

You know, if you'd read all the way to the next paragraph, which you even quoted below, I summarized the lie I was told.

We've all been discussing that it's policy, not technical.

That doesn't make sense.

Someone doesn't believe that. Someone asked his phone company a straight question but failed to receive a straight answer.

Thanks for telling me about my own situation that I'd already described.

In this day of electronic switching and routing? Of course not.

I don't actually believe that it's not offered. When I follow up with the state public utility commission, I'll ask.

They refused to sell something like that to me as well.

These comments are irrelevant to how the cell phone network interfaces with the land line network.

Not really. They still use the largely inapplicable concept of rate centers, I guess by tariff, which as the OP discussed in a different followup, could give a landline phone company an excuse not to port a number from cell to landline.

Thank you for your post and the detail in which you described all of the differences between a Rate Center and a Wire Center. I am not familiar with any of these processes, so if what I ask you here has already been answered or is common knowledge, I apologize for that.

I would like to port over a number from Verizon Wireless to Qwest (as a land line). I was told this is no problem, but then when they checked the Verizon phone number, they said it was unable to be ported. I probed deeper with the customer service rep and they explained how the Verizon number was in a different Wire Center, etc. I did not want to accept that it was not possible to port the number to Qwest, so I called back and got a similar explanation. Again, I thought I'd try again and this time when I called, the Customer Service rep researched it for an hour +, then called back and explained how the Verizon number was in a different Rate Center, so it was not possible to port it from one rate center to another. This makes a lot more sense, especially with your explanation on the difference between a rate center and a wire center. You said several times that porting from one wire center to another is possible as long as it is in the same rate center. Is it possible to port from one rate center to another? If no, could you explain why? Is this something I can pursue and get done if I keep going up the ladder or should I leave it alone? The rate centers are in the same metro area of Salt Lake City.

Thank you!

"Possible" has a number of meanings. Ask Bill Clinton.

The technology exists that would _permit_ it to be done.

There is no law that _requires_ that that particular capability be made available to anyone in that situation.

Telcos have good reasons to not want to do it -- allowing it would make a whole lot of things, including administrative, operational, and billing records-keeping, _much_, *MUCH*, messier.

The telcos have not made tariff filings to legally *offer* such a service to customers. Despite that, if the telco _wanted_ to, they could do it under the 'special services' tariff, *BUT* going that route gets _very_ expensive.

Summary, it is "_theoretically_ possible", however telcos have solid reasons for not doing it (unless -forced- to), and thus, it is 'administratively prohibited', as a matter of very-high-level policy.

"Anything is possible" -- someone once remarked he "could sell dead cats to the Board of Health, given a free hand, and a big enough budget."

That said, however, I would =not= rate the chances of success as at all good.

Doing it for -one- customer opens up a large industrial-size can of worms that no telco would _ever_ desire to get anywhere near.

I can't conceive of an amount of money 'big enough' to persuade any telco to wade into that swamp.

And I can't see an individual -- even a J. Paul Getty type -- shelling out the probable billions for _that_ approach, when for a -relative- pittance (probably in the low millions, _max_) one could buy a 'landing spot' inside the particular rate center, establish a back-haul to your premises across town (either telco provided, or private wire on rented pole space)

OTOH, if you _do_ manage to accomplish it, you could open a school teaching aspiring Don Quixote's, and charge _anything_you_liked_!! *grin*