FCC Asks AT&T Wireless to Explain Porting Problems

The FCC on Thursday sent a letter to AT&T Wireless asking the No. 3 mobile phone company why so many of its customers have had difficulties transferring their phone numbers to other carriers.

“Over the past few days, we have received a number of complaints from consumers and carriers, and have noted recent press accounts, indicating that a porting backlog exists for ports from AT&T Wireless to other carriers,” John B. Muleta, FCC chief of the wireless telecommunications bureau, wrote in the letter.

Muleta asked AT&T Wireless to provide the FCC with information detailing the porting problems and how the company was solving the glitches by Dec. 10.

More people were complaining about AT&T Wireless than any other carrier, said Gerard Brikkenaar van Dijk, a spokesman for NumberPortability.com LLC, a New York company providing information on number portability, in an interview.

Frank Orlowski, of Eatontown, N.J., is one of those people. He says he walked into a Cingular Wireless store and switched service last Friday, yet his number still hasn’t been ported from AT&T Wireless to Cingular.

“I spent at least six or seven hours on the phone with Cingular forcing them to really solve that issue,” Orlowski says. “I am talking to two different people in a 10-minute timeframe and getting different answers.”

“Sometimes [Cingular representatives] blame AT&T, sometimes they don’t. … But my point is, I am a Cingular customer now. I expect you to solve that issue for me. I shouldn’t be the one calling you like three times a day trying to figure out what is going on.”

Adds Orlowski: “I tell you, the whole thing is a disaster.”

Wireless local number portability went into effect Nov. 24, requiring carriers serving the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas to allow customers to keep their phone numbers if they defect to another provider.

AT&T Wireless spokeswoman Rochelle Cohen says the company will respond to the FCC by Wednesday. She says AT&T Wireless is telling consumers they should expect a porting request to take five days on average.

"We are very early in the game here. It is a new process, extremely complex and it relies on the coordination of carriers, vendors, number administrators," Cohen says. "If you ask wireless carriers I don't think you will find any that say they are offering consumers a satisfactory experience at this stage. I think we all recognize there is room for improvement."

Adds Cohen: "We are confident in the future we will be able to make this process more efficient."

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