Carriers Unprepared for Wireless Number Portability Deadline:
"Number portability is drawing near, but because many wireless carriers aren't ready for the flood of customers looking to make the switch, experts advise waiting to change contracts."

In fact, customers should wait until at least March before trying to change carriers, according to a new study from Mobile Competency Inc., a consultancy in Providence, R.I.

The study focused on six major carriers, all of which have established WNP (wireless number portability) call centers: Verizon Wireless Inc., Sprint, Nextel Communications Inc., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Cingular Wireless Inc. Of these, only Verizon, Sprint, Nextel and Cingular have call centers designed for enterprise ports. And only Sprint and Nextel have published enterprise WNP guidelines.

The study also found that only two carriers are prepared for porting from wire line to wireless: Verizon, which stands to gain wireless business from its own wire-line customers, and Nextel, which has no wire-line business.

As of last week, none of the top six carriers had completed carrier-to-enterprise service-level agreements nor had any completed intercarrier testing with the other five carriers to make sure that porting would work smoothly. While the FCC has issued loose guidelines that say a port should take no more than 2.5 hours, there is no penalty for carriers that don't meet that time limit.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1376512,00.asp