Subject: [NEXTEL-1] A not-so-good way of recycling

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Nov 2002 18:01:57 -0500

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2002-11-20-phones_x.htm

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11/20/2002 - Updated 10:10 PM ET

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A not-so-good way of recycling

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Some recycled cellphone numbers are causing fresh headaches for their new owners.

Those consumers are being billed for premium services, such as text messaging, which previous users signed up for but never canceled.

Case in point: Tech consultant Chris Murphy, 35, of Dallas. He started receiving text messages about pro basketball's Dallas Mavericks, at a cost of 10 cents each, from America Online last month.

But he never subscribed to that service. He inherited it when he was assigned a new phone number that had once belonged to someone else.

"It's galling. I was charged for spam," Murphy says. "Thank goodness I'm not getting 20 stock updates daily."

Murphy's quandary underscores a vexing problem for consumers, cell phone carriers and Web sites as more phone numbers are recycled and more people inherit wireless services. Consumer advocates say the situation illustrates why the unregulated cell phone industry needs government oversight.

AOL says it wasn't notified by Murphy's cellular carrier, Cingular Wireless, that the phone number had been reassigned, so AOL assumed the customer was still an AOL Alerts subscriber.

And the original user is — sort of. Though that person switched cell phone numbers, he still receives e-mail from AOL Alerts under the same subscription. AOL's privacy policy prohibits it from contacting the customer. It says the customer — or at least the cellular company — is responsible for stopping service.

Cingular disagrees. It says AOL should have canceled the text messages. Cingular, however, did not charge Murphy $1.70 for the 17 unwanted messages he received for about a month. And at Murphy's request, AOL purged the old cell phone account last week.

"It's a consumer conundrum," says Owen Clay, a spokesman for Cingular Wireless, the nation's No. 2 wireless company.

"Do you protect privacy or continue to send unwanted spam?"

An estimated 1.6 million cell phone numbers are recycled, says the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, the industry's main trade group.

The Federal Communications Commission does not collect information on recycled numbers, spokesman Lauren Kravitz says. Cellular companies are assigned a block of numbers but don't disclose how many are reused.

About 3 million people subscribe to AOL Alerts for instant updates on their e-mail and cell phones. The service is free, but cellular users are charged about 10 cents a call by their carrier for incoming text messages.

Microsoft won't say how many text-message subscribers it has, but an estimated 5 million mobile users subscribe to MSN in the USA. Within six months, it will unveil a cancellation service for text messages intended to avoid problems such as Murphy's. When a customer drops a cell phone number, the carrier would contact MSN directly and instruct it to disable the messaging service, Microsoft says.

Yahoo started Yahoo Messenger in October. It gives cell phone users the option to open messages and only charges 10 cents a call for responses to messages. Subscribers can also pay $4.99 a month for 100 responses, a Yahoo spokeswoman says.

AT&T Wireless, which does not charge for incoming text messages, reports a handful of cases similar to Murphy's.

Jessica Zufolo, legislative director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, says the onus is on cell phone companies to purge premium services from used numbers.

"Cellular carriers have no policy," she says.

cell phone companies have resisted regulators' efforts the past few years to allow customers to change carriers without changing phone numbers — an option now available for regular phones.

Cellular carriers say the service would be pricey.

Regulators, such as Anne Boyle, chairwoman of the Nebraska Public Service Commission, contend cellular providers are afraid customers will flee to competitors with better service.

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