Regulatory Watch : Wireless Area Codes; FCC Must Pay for Trade Show Trips

Court OKs Use of Wireless Area Codes

The wireless industry lost a key battle in its fight to halt wireless area codes on July 1 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled the FCC can create such area codes. The FCC wants to use the area codes to prevent the depletion of phone numbers. The assignment of phone numbers to millions of cell users means the nation could run out of area codes by 2010, according to the FCC.

The Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) doesn’t like the idea because in some states cell phone users would have to give up their existing mobile numbers in exchange for new ones, which would be a statistical and OSS nightmare for wireless carriers.

The court’s ruling follows a decision by the FCC in early June to let the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control implement a wireless area code for cell phones and other services. The state plans to overlay two existing area codes—203 and 860—with a new wireless code; after three years it must be opened to all telecom services. Connecticut and other states that have asked the FCC for the area codes have had to fight the wireless industry, which believes the FCC is being discriminatory in focusing on wireless carriers to fix their area code problem.

The wireless industry also doesn’t like the fact that the special area codes tip off people that they’re dialing cell users. The carriers believe that potential wireless customers—who don’t want others to know they’re using a wireless device—won’t sign up for service. Another reason the industry gives is that some subscribers don’t want people to think they live in “undesirable” places. Such an area code could create the false impression that someone lives in a depressed or poor area.

In December, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) sought an area code for mobile phones in Southern California. The CPUC wanted to seize the phone numbers already in use by subscribers in the 310 and 909 area codes and create a new wireless area code. The CPUC also wanted to use a 10-digit dialing string for those calling cell users.

Wireless carriers, under the auspices of the CTIA, complained loudly. And they may have a point. Under the plan, wireless carriers wouldn’t be able to assign numbers to customers in all the area codes in the state, and getting callers to remember to dial 10 digits only when calling a friend or business with a cell phone would be confusing.

Tom Wheeler, president of CTIA, also argues that subscribers will be able to sidestep the new area code and phone number requirement by simply porting their wireline phone number to their cell phones.

McCain: FCC Must Pay for Trade Show Trips

In all the bucking and stomping around the FCC building since Secretary of State Colin Powell’s son, Michael, became the FCC chairman, one fact seems to have been overlooked. The FCC has to be re-authorized before it can continue to exist. It’s a small matter that’s not up for question—not this year, anyway.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which oversees the FCC, gets to write a letter to the president outlining the contents of the bill that authorizes the FCC to stay in business. The bill, known as the Federal Communications Commission Reauthorization Act of 2003, would let the commission continue operating until 2007.

In that letter, McCain gets a chance to put his spin on how he sees things at the commission. It’s also a kind of wrap-up on issues that Congress has had with the FCC in the past year. One item in the letter from McCain to President Bush may be of interest to carriers and industry groups that host FCC officials at their events.

McCain wants to ban any payment or reimbursement to the FCC of travel costs for FCC officials or staff from “a nongovernmental sponsor of a convention, conference, or meeting,” McCain writes. “Recent reports indicate that during the last eight years, FCC officials and staff have taken more than 2,500 trips paid for by the industries they regulate.” Though the travel isn’t illegal, McCain wants the bill to give the commission “sufficient funds to pay for their own travel costs in the future.”