I’ve followed the contention over cellular phone number portability ever since I became aware there was none. I’ve been with the same cellular carrier for ten years; having had a consistent phone number has been a fringe benefit more than a motivation not to switch, because I’ve been happy with my service, but it is clear that it prevents many from switching. The FCC is mandating number portability — which it rationalizes as increasing competition — by November of this year, after many postponements based on industry concerns that they are in effect being mandated to pay the expenses connected with losing customers. This latest lawsuit argues that the FCC is exceeding its statutory authority in requiring portability, which is a claim not given much credence by telecommunications industry observers. Portability has reportedly not damaged the European cellular industry and has its wisdom. However, it may lead to a shakeout in the industry and decrease diversity, it seems to me. Since infrastructure is a largely fixed cost, the companies threatened with financial losses will only be those whose customer base shrinks significantly if the new rules stimulate increased carrier switching — those which provide appreciably worse service. If marginal companies fail, competition in any regional market will suffer, not increase, no? It may in a sense be similar to the last decade’s airline deregulation situation, which was supposed to benefit the consumer and increase competition but was the beginning of the shakeout in the industry, which is now far kinder to business travellers whose fares are paid by corporate expense accounts than the casual vacation flyer like myself. Whether centralization of the cellular industry will on the whole be good or bad for the consumer is, it seems to me as an end user, an open question. I use my phone largely in a local market, so a larger national network with less out-of-network roaming is of less value to me than to a business traveller, although it is convenient to be reachable coast-to-coast on the five or six occasions each year that I am out-of-area. In principle, though, progress toward the ideal of a universal phone number which is fully portable, permanent, and through which one can be reached wherever they are in time and space, seems desireable. Now, if they would only combine that with number universality across media, so that with one address or ‘phone number’ people can reach me with voice, fax, email, paging and IM, I’ll be fully content — except when I don’t want to be reached…