Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Portability Gets Personal

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 12:48:49 -0500

Portability Gets Personal

All eyes are on local number
portability this holiday season,
but the process produced a
maze of questions for this journalist. 
 
By Karen Brown

December 15, 2003
Wireless Week

(Editor's Note: Wireless Week Senior Editor Karen Brown volunteered to port her
mobile phone number when the LNP mandate took effect Nov. 24. Following is her
account of the experience - which, incidentally, took more than the intended two
and a half hours.) 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice LNP.

It all started innocently enough. As we at Wireless Week planned our coverage of
wireless local number portability, we decided that one of us should try to
switch carriers and see what would happen.

Being relatively new and therefore clueless, I raised my hand, and presto! I was
now a wireless explorer, ready to forge into the uncharted LNP jungle. I wasn't
alone, though–because I have a corporate wireless account, I enlisted Gary, our
company's intrepid local phone systems administrator, to join the expedition and
provide the required account authorization.

What an expedition it turns out to be. Two weeks after the first call–after
nearly seven aggregate hours spent on hold or waiting and dealing with no less
than nine customer service representatives–I finally have a working phone with
my old number and my new carrier. Below is a blow-by-blow of our meandering path
through LNP. As this is far from a scientific experiment, the names of the
carriers are withheld to protect the guilty.

Monday, Nov. 24: Bright and early on the first day of LNP, we put in the call.
After waiting several minutes on hold, the live account rep tells us that the
entire port ordering system is down, and it won't be possible to transfer
service until the next day. He tells us to call back then.

Tuesday, Nov. 25: When we call back, an automated recording says we will have to
wait 16 to 20 minutes for service. It is actually closer to 25 minutes. When we
finally reach a CSR, we slowly work through the porting information–what kind of
service we want, what plan and what phone. 

But a snarl quickly comes up. The handset we want is going to cost a lot more
than we thought. It turns out that all of those great phone deals available for
the holidays aren't available for business customers. We have to make sure that
expense is approved by our administrators.

We also need a copy of my wireless bill, but my service is directly billed to
the company at a separate address. So the CSR gives us our porting order number
and tells us to call back when we have the billing information and the OK on the
handset.

Wednesday, Nov. 26: Billing information and approvals now in hand, we dial in.
After waiting 45 minutes on hold, a cheery woman comes on to complete the order. 

We give her the exact account billing address. We spell everything out exactly
as it appears on the bill, down to the street abbreviation.

When she pulls up the account information, the wrong handset is listed for
ordering. We change that. But just when we think we are home free, the CSR comes
back and starts to give us a new number. Apparently, the idea that we are making
a numbers porting request isn't part of the order logged the day before. She
tells us she will probably have to cancel the whole thing and start over again
and asks to put us on hold while she finds out what to do. She also asks us for
a phone number to call back if we are cut off.

After a few minutes on hold, that's exactly what happens. Then the line goes
dead. We are cut off. She never calls back.

Reluctantly, we dial back into the main number and expect another long wait. But
instead we immediately get a CSR.

"Wow, that was quick," I say.

"This is TDMA," the CSR flatly replies. We tell her we had dialed in for GSM.
"Oh, you must have been misrouted," she says. Then she transfers us over to the
GSM side, and the expected wait begins.

Thirty-five minutes in, hallelujah! We get to a CSR. I briefly explain what
happened with the last CSR. Our new CSR, Peter, pulls up the port request
information. After again taking down the account billing information and
re-checking to see if the number can be ported, Peter tells us he has to check
with his supervisor to see if he should start over or try to modify the existing
order. He puts us on hold and promises not to cut us off.

"You are my first port in," he tells us. "So you've got a real rookie."

He comes back and says he will try to modify the existing port order. It takes
him several minutes to re-check all of the information, and then we hit another
snag. Turns out the price for the phone we want was again incorrect. It is, of
course, more costly.

What follows is about 20 minutes of rechecking information and periods on hold.
Eventually, Peter tells us we can have the phone at the original price, and he
is ready to make the port request. Several more minutes on hold pass. He comes
back and announces there is some sort of error with the authorization. Again on
hold. For a really long time.

Peter finally comes back on the line and tells us the port request has been
submitted to our old carrier and the phone will be delivered. 

He thanks us for calling, and we hang up.

Total time on this call alone has been two hours, 15 minutes.

Saturday, Nov. 29: I receive a message, left Friday on my mobile, saying there
is an issue with my port request, with instructions to call my new carrier's
special wireless portability administration center hotline. I dutifully call in
and listen to Muzak for 30 minutes before the line goes dead.

Sunday, Nov. 30: I try again. A recorded message states the system is down and
advises that I should call back in an hour. I do. The CSR comes on after about
10 minutes and tells me the system still isn't up. But she takes my number down
and tells me she will call back when it revives, and at that time she will read
the file and tell me what the problem is.

An hour after that, another CSR calls back, saying she has the information. She
says the name on the account was in conflict and asks me what the name should
be. She nixes my name, and then I offer it might be Gary's. Sure enough, Gary's
name is on the account rather than mine. Because I offered Gary's name
unprompted, the CSR says she will go ahead and submit the port request (déjà vu
from Wednesday, anyone?) and I again hang up, thinking we finally have it
straight.

Monday, Dec. 1: The signs aren't encouraging. The new phone hasn't arrived, and
my old phone still works, so I call back in. After several attempts that end in
a fast-busy signal on the local number portability hotline, I call back into the
original business services line. After another 15 minutes on hold, I get to a
CSR, who looks up the account. 

"That's weird–apparently someone forgot to submit this port request," he tells
me.

"But the reps on Wednesday and Sunday both said they did," I protest.

"Well, that's not what the system is showing," he says.

Ditto, the phone I ordered also hasn't been sent.

This CSR assures me he has stabbed the submit button on his keyboard and the
port request is definitely on its way. I am understandably suspicious because
two other CSRs along the way had said the same thing. 

But he tells me I will have service. In 24 to 48 hours–about the same time it
would take to overnight the phone.

Tuesday, Dec. 2: The new phone is here! Apparently something went through,
because my brand new phone is here. After powering the battery and turning it
on–viola! I can make a call. 

Wednesday, Dec. 3: Oh, so close. While I can make calls on the phone, I can't
receive them. Calls into my number dump into voice mail on the old phone. A
relatively quick call to the numbers portability administration for my new
carrier turns up the problem: For some reason, it was still waiting to confirm
my old carrier account number and Gary's name as the authorizing agent for our
company. The CSR says he input that information, and the problem should be
cleared up by the end of the day.

Friday, Dec. 5: The CSR on Wednesday wasn't quite right. My fancy new phone
still doesn't work. Again I dial the portability administration number, which I
have now memorized, and I get Donny after a half-hour wait. He says there is
still some sort of problem with the information in the port
request–specifically, my old carrier is rejecting the request because the
account number is wrong, and there is something else wrong in the customer
billing information. Mind you, they can't tell me what is wrong, only that it
is. I quickly check with our account rep for the old carrier and she e-mails the
billing information just as it appears on the monthly invoice. I pass this
along, and Donny takes my home number down and gives me his direct dial number,
promising he will call the next day with an update.

Saturday, Dec. 6: It is almost 6 p.m. and no call from Donny. I call him. But
the automated phone system on the other end insists the extension number he gave
me is invalid. Once again, back to the numbers portability hotline, and after
about 20 minutes of waiting, I get Rodrick. He apologizes for Donny, saying they
didn't assign him to the same station on Saturday so the call never came to him.
But onward. Rodrick says the old carrier is still refusing the port. I ask if
there is any way to call the old carrier and find out what would make them happy
port-requestwise, and Rodrick says he will try, and he will call back. 

I hang up, not at all confident he will do so. But true to his word, Rodrick
calls back about an hour later. He tells me a representative of the old carrier
has actually passed along what the problems are–the first zero on the account
number must be removed; my name must be struck from the record, leaving only our
company's name and the tax ID number also must be cut out. Rodrick says with
that change it should go through … but wait. Apparently, the request filed by
Donny the day before has received no answer from the old carrier, and until that
happens, Rodrick can't send in the updated information. He says he will do so as
soon as that reply (undoubtedly a request denied notice) comes through, and if
that happens while he is off work the next day, another CSR will take care of
it. 

Monday, Dec. 8: Nobody took care of it. It is two full weeks and still no
wireless phone service. Apparently my port request is hopelessly bouncing
between the two carriers, and nobody knows how to fix the situation. 

So I decide to drop the ordinary customer disguise. I call the PR person for the
new carrier and explain my predicament, asking if there is something I am
missing here. Lickety split, he gets my information and sends it to a contact,
likely with a red flag wrapped around it.

An hour later, a Super CSR calls up and takes my cell number, saying he will
look into it.

Then, miraculously, at 4:30 p.m., I look down to see the message light on my
new–and heretofore useless–device is blinking. I open it up to find a missed
message, from Super CSR. Hallelujah!

Granted, this is just one experience in thousands, and we did what analysts
warned everyone against–we tried to transfer my phone number during the first
few days of LNP, which also happened to be timed for the start of the holiday
rush. I was aware doing so might invite disaster, and as usual, disaster did not
hesitate to RSVP.

But the experience is an example of the skidmark left when government mandated
rubber hits the implementation road–and the roadkill that results.

In the first few days at least, LNP stood for Long, Nasty Process.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA341664?spacedesc=Departments&stt=000

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