I've been thinking about number portability. Here is my amatuer take on it.

1)  I've been waiting for a long time for this. Actually, I gave up waiting last March. That's when I finally gave up my longtime 612 (Minneapolis area code) number and got a 651 (Saint Paul area code) number. I switched from Sprint to T-Mobile.

The people who call me fairly often had no trouble with the switch. And the people who don't call me often could never remember my number anyway. T-mobile has been great over all. It's much cheaper than Sprint, they have good customer service, and because it's GSM, I was able to take my phone to Italy this summer (after T-Mobile unlucked my phone) and buy a prepaid card there. However, the call quality is a little worse, and I have unstable coverage inside my office.

Long story short, I don't think I will actually make use of number portablility in the near future. But it could help me get DEALS DEALS DEALS on PHONES PHONES PHONES.

2) Industry shake up. How will number portability affect the industry? Will there be mergers? Bankruptcies? I'll have to tune in to Sound Money next weekend and find out. There are 6 national carriers. AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, and Nextel. Broken down by technology (I don't think a CDMA carrier would buy a GSM carrier), we have AT&T, T-Mobile, and Cingular using GSM, Verizon and Sprint using CDMA and Nextel using iDen. That leaves realatively few merger possibilities among the 'big six'. Although they might scarf up smaller, regional, carriers.

Possibilities

AT&TWireless & T-Mobile, AT&TWireless & Cingular, T-Mobile & Cingular, AT&T Wireless & T-mobile & Cingular. Sprint & Verizon.

Why would one of these companies buy or merge with another. Coverage? Customers? Market Share? T-Mobile is owned by the largest telecom(telekom) in the world. I don't think they are going to get bought out. Verizon is partly owned by Vodafone the largest mobile telecom in the world. Cingular is a joint between some local bell companies.

T-Mobile is, like most European wireless subscribers, a conservative right now because they spent to much money on the 3G spectrum auctions in Europe. Bell South, partner in Cingular was recently entertaining the idea of purchasing AT&T, who I presume is the majority owner of at&t wireless. BellSouth is a partner in Cingular. So my best guess is some kind of merger of At&t Wireless and Cingular.

This probably won't happen until after the number portability shakout though. I think people will flock to T-Mobile, Cingular, and Verizon from AT&T wirless (Do people they don't know they could keep the same phone with T-Mobile and Cingular, just have to get it unlocked?)   We'll see...

12:30:06 PM