Don't lose your digits

Cell phones are a very common sight on campus. It seems as if everyone walks around with one in their hand.\nBut as the minutes are racked up using the phones, so are the costs if someone is stuck in a contract with an expensive wireless service. Plus, the hassle of switching services -- and phone numbers -- takes up more time than a college student wants to handle.\nWhat if one could change to a cheaper service without having to sign up for a new number? That's what the Federal Communications Commission and some consumer advocates are pushing for.\n"Many consumers tell us that they are not satisfied with their wireless service, but they are unwilling to switch because they can't take their numbers with them," Chris Murray, an attorney for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, told CNN.\nCongress passed a bill in 1996 that allowed people to keep their traditional local phone numbers when they moved or changed phone companies. The FCC decided that wireless carriers should offer the same service in 1999, but wireless companies keep asking for extensions before the requirement is set into place.\nWe wish the wireless companies would stop delaying this much-needed requirement and start giving the best service possible to its customers. \n"Wireless companies will have stronger incentives to provide better service and lower prices if consumers can take their numbers," Murray said.\nThis requirement is the idea of capitalism at its finest, and it could only help the many cell phone users at IU and elsewhere.\nBut most wireless companies have argued that their industry is competitive enough, and the expense of this requirement will make it harder to provide cheaper phones.\nWe don't see this as the case.\nIf the wireless companies would just pull all of the possible cell phone number prefixes into one pool from which to choose this could not cost any more than what is currently avaliable. The companies would not have to reserve certain prefixes for their different services, and they could still provide their phones at a cheap cost. \nWireless companies are just making excuses so they do not have to be in direct competition with other wireless providers. We think this is a poor decision, and we hope the cell phone companies will get over their fear of direct competition and allow their customers the freedom to choose.\nThe idea makes sense for wireless companies and their customers, and hopefully they can hear it now.\n-- Ben Cunningham for the Editorial Board