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New Laws Let Cell Phone Users Keep Land Line Numbers

Aired September 23, 2003 - 13:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I mean, I guess this is kind of getting old fashioned now, but think of it as a phone at home, cell phone, phone at the office, all of those things.
Well, all the lines are kind of blurring on that these days. New regulations that take effect next month could cause some folks to unplug their land lines entirely and just go cellular. Of course, there's a whole generation of people out there that don't even bother with the old twisted pairs, as they say.

Let's get the 411 on all of this from CNN's tech guru, Daniel Sieberg. I guess the new thing is, Daniel, that a land line phone number can now be put into a cell phone. That's kind of an interesting idea.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. These are all part of the FCC's deadline November 24. And you know right now a lot people feel like they're probably giving out a phone directory when they're people their different whether it's a cell phone, home phone or and office phone.

Now the main part of these regulations on November 24 is the idea that if you have a one number on one cell phone company you can then take that cell phone number with you if you want to change to another company. But a big parts of that, and some say this is maybe perhaps even more of an emerging trend, is taking your home number or your office number and turn that into your wireless number.

So in a sense, ditching your land line and just going wireless.

O'BRIEN: Now, Daniel, give us some pros and cons of doing just that. Now I know there are a lot of people out there who -- young people, for example, who don't even bother with the regular phone service and that doesn't really apply to them. This would be somebody like myself who wanted to get rid of their regular land line service. Why would I want to do that?

SIEBERG: Right, great question. I mean right now you could just buy a cell phone and simply have that as your number, but you would have that new number that new cell phone number.

But if you want to take an existing land line number and transfer that over to your cell phone, that's what's new about this new deadline. and you're right, there are pros and cons involved with this.

The pros, you can see here, it allows you to have just this one phone number wherever you go. A lot of people are mobile, outside of the office so it allows them to be a little bit more portable.

It can save you money. This is where it gets a little bit gray, a little bit murky depending on where you live, which state, what sort of a package you might get, a long distance and so on. But you can also change carriers so you can keep your number and go to a different carrier, depending on which company you prefer, their package.

Now, as far as the cons go. If you've got an existing contract -- let's say you want to take your cell phone number and you want to move to another cell phone company, you still have an existing contract, you would have to break that contract and you may have to pay a termination fee. That's a separate part of the land line to wireless (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

But it's all part of this November 24 deadline. You may lose some services. For example if you have dial-up at home and you get rid of your land line you'd have to find another way to do that. Might be a cable modem, it might be DSL or wireless or some other way to do it.

And some people like their land line because it offers this kind of back-up or a sense of something they can call on so to speak in case of an emergency. So some people might be more comfortable with that.

Again, this November 24 deadline, there's a chance it may not happen, but a lot of analysts that we talked to say it is going to go forward. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

O'BRIEN: To clarify one point. If you want to have DSL you've got to have land line phone service, right?

SIEBERG: Right. You need to have that service depending on which provider you want to go you want to go with...

O'BRIEN: And if you want to operate a fax machine, for example. So there's still a few reasons.

(CROSSTALK)

SIEBERG: ... depends on what you want to do with it and what you're going to be using it for.

O'BRIEN: But you could imagine a scenario where a phone number is more like a Social Security number. It just goes with you wherever you go throughout your life.

SIEBERG: Right, that's what these analysts are saying is that your number would become sort your personal number. Wherever you go, whatever you're doing, you just have this one number and take it with you wherever you go, no matter what the services are, no matter what you want to be doing with it.

And, again, this bundled bill, you could have a number of different services all rolled into one, and that might make it more attractive to consumers. That's the key to all of this, analysts say, is that it's benefiting the consumers with choice and control.

O'BRIEN: All right, Daniel Sieberg, out technology guru, thanks very much. We appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 23, 2003 - 13:45   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I mean, I guess this is kind of getting old fashioned now, but think of it as a phone at home, cell phone, phone at the office, all of those things.
Well, all the lines are kind of blurring on that these days. New regulations that take effect next month could cause some folks to unplug their land lines entirely and just go cellular. Of course, there's a whole generation of people out there that don't even bother with the old twisted pairs, as they say.

Let's get the 411 on all of this from CNN's tech guru, Daniel Sieberg. I guess the new thing is, Daniel, that a land line phone number can now be put into a cell phone. That's kind of an interesting idea.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. These are all part of the FCC's deadline November 24. And you know right now a lot people feel like they're probably giving out a phone directory when they're people their different whether it's a cell phone, home phone or and office phone.

Now the main part of these regulations on November 24 is the idea that if you have a one number on one cell phone company you can then take that cell phone number with you if you want to change to another company. But a big parts of that, and some say this is maybe perhaps even more of an emerging trend, is taking your home number or your office number and turn that into your wireless number.

So in a sense, ditching your land line and just going wireless.

O'BRIEN: Now, Daniel, give us some pros and cons of doing just that. Now I know there are a lot of people out there who -- young people, for example, who don't even bother with the regular phone service and that doesn't really apply to them. This would be somebody like myself who wanted to get rid of their regular land line service. Why would I want to do that?

SIEBERG: Right, great question. I mean right now you could just buy a cell phone and simply have that as your number, but you would have that new number that new cell phone number.

But if you want to take an existing land line number and transfer that over to your cell phone, that's what's new about this new deadline. and you're right, there are pros and cons involved with this.

The pros, you can see here, it allows you to have just this one phone number wherever you go. A lot of people are mobile, outside of the office so it allows them to be a little bit more portable.

It can save you money. This is where it gets a little bit gray, a little bit murky depending on where you live, which state, what sort of a package you might get, a long distance and so on. But you can also change carriers so you can keep your number and go to a different carrier, depending on which company you prefer, their package.

Now, as far as the cons go. If you've got an existing contract -- let's say you want to take your cell phone number and you want to move to another cell phone company, you still have an existing contract, you would have to break that contract and you may have to pay a termination fee. That's a separate part of the land line to wireless (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

But it's all part of this November 24 deadline. You may lose some services. For example if you have dial-up at home and you get rid of your land line you'd have to find another way to do that. Might be a cable modem, it might be DSL or wireless or some other way to do it.

And some people like their land line because it offers this kind of back-up or a sense of something they can call on so to speak in case of an emergency. So some people might be more comfortable with that.

Again, this November 24 deadline, there's a chance it may not happen, but a lot of analysts that we talked to say it is going to go forward. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

O'BRIEN: To clarify one point. If you want to have DSL you've got to have land line phone service, right?

SIEBERG: Right. You need to have that service depending on which provider you want to go you want to go with...

O'BRIEN: And if you want to operate a fax machine, for example. So there's still a few reasons.

(CROSSTALK)

SIEBERG: ... depends on what you want to do with it and what you're going to be using it for.

O'BRIEN: But you could imagine a scenario where a phone number is more like a Social Security number. It just goes with you wherever you go throughout your life.

SIEBERG: Right, that's what these analysts are saying is that your number would become sort your personal number. Wherever you go, whatever you're doing, you just have this one number and take it with you wherever you go, no matter what the services are, no matter what you want to be doing with it.

And, again, this bundled bill, you could have a number of different services all rolled into one, and that might make it more attractive to consumers. That's the key to all of this, analysts say, is that it's benefiting the consumers with choice and control.

O'BRIEN: All right, Daniel Sieberg, out technology guru, thanks very much. We appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com