Wireless customers are reporting fewer snags when changing their cell phone provider while keeping the same number, according to a new survey.
Though it can still take days to transfer a number from an old wireless service to a new one, the system is much calmer now than it was in early December.
The so-called number portability rules ordered by the Federal Communications Commission took effect Nov. 24.
In the weeks following the new rules, nearly half of the transactions ran into trouble, said Jeff Maszal, research director for The Management Network Group. Now, only about 15 percent of the transactions hit snags.
“We found that 95 percent of the retailers said they had received some training in portability procedures,” said Maszal. “That suggests that the carriers were serious about making this work as well as possible.”
This survey of cell phone retailers regarding portability issues was completed in February by TMNG, a consulting firm based in Overland Park, Kan.
Still, since only customers in the nation’s Top 100 markets can port their phone numbers now, Maszal warned that a new round of glitches may plague the wireless industry in late May when the entire country is eligible for number portability.
Many of the carriers in smaller markets are not national providers, such as Verizon Wireless or Cingular Wireless, and they do not have the financial resources to support number portability, Maszal said.
One reason that wireless number portability worked well–eventually–was that five of the six national carriers used the same vendor to handle transactions, said Nick Wray, a vice president for Teldata Control Inc., a firm that manages telecom services for large enterprises.
“One computer system was doing about 80 percent of the transactions,” he said.
The one carrier that used a different vendor, AT&T Wireless, had far more problems than any other carrier–drawing FCC scrutiny.
Wray said smaller cell phone carriers that offer portability in May could experience problems similar to those at AT&T Wireless if they cannot afford to hire the number-porting vendor used by major carriers.
Andrew Cole, senior vice president at Adventis, a Boston-based consultancy, said portability glitches in May “are almost inevitable” even though the industry has learned much about the process in the past three months.
The TMNG survey supports what many observers predicted: that early technical problems with wireless portability would gradually be solved.
The survey also found that about 60 percent of customers who are switching carriers are doing so because they can keep their phone number.
“That’s just what our earlier research suggested would happen,” he said.
TMNG surveyed customer expectations regarding portability in October.
While millions of consumers have taken their phone numbers to new wireless carriers, a similar shift among corporate customers has not really begun yet, said Gregory Carr, Teldata’s chief executive.
“This process is parallel to what happened in the early days of competitive long-distance,” Carr said. “The real price wars for wireless are just heating up. The best deals will become available later this year.”
One disappointing finding in the TMNG survey is that moving phone numbers from wired phones to wireless ones continues to be a slow, arduous process that can take two to three weeks.
