Wow! FCC Sides Against Verizon

In an epic decision today, the FCC sided with cable (Bright House) against Verizon in the battle over CPNI and customers

In this Memorandum Opinion and Order, we reject the Enforcement Bureau's April 11, 2008, Recommended Decision in this Accelerated Docket proceeding, and grant in part a formal complaint filed against Defendants (collectively, "Verizon") pursuant to section 208 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended ("Act"). For the reasons explained below, we conclude that Verizon is violating section 222(b) of the Act by using, for customer retention marketing purposes, proprietary information (CPNI) of other carriers that it receives in the local number porting process, and we order Verizon immediately to cease and desist from such unlawful conduct.

In other words, when VZ gets an order to port a number to a CLEC or a cable company, they cannot market to that person while delaying the porting process. CPNI has been a huge issue for this Commission lately. I'm shocked that Martin stuck to his CPNI guns, instead of allowing VZ to torpedo MSO customer acquisition efforts.

CPNI is the info that VZ has about every connection on its network, whether you are a direct customer or indirect customer. CLEC's and independent phone companies have a tendency to delay LNP (porting of phone numbers) for as long as possible (I have seen up to 90 days) to keep revenue on the books. The customer blames the new company not the company holding up the process.