So far, the FCC has been holding to its thrice-postponed November 11th deadline for number portability despite clamoring from the major cell carriers to postpone it yet again.

At issue is the ability to keep your telephone number when you move from one cell carrier to another. Hidden inside is also your ability to move wired-line and wireless numbers between carriers.

The complaints from the cell companies are that the costs (estimated by the industry at $1B) are prohibitive and that there is "enough competition in the industry already".

However, some of the companies that have wireless and wired-line services (such as Verizon) may be fighting this for another reason. In this case, there may be concerns about the second provision that will open up wired numbers to movement to competitors wireless networks. As it stands, 3% of the cellular phone subscribers have no wired-line phone. Thus, it isn't entirely out of the question as a risk.