Local-Phone Firms Ask FCC to Delay Decision

SBC Communications Inc. and 70 other U.S. local-telephone companies asked federal regulators to delay a decision that would allow more customers to move their home telephone numbers to wireless phones.

Such a change by the Federal Communications Commission would illegally tilt the competitive balance in favor of wireless operators, the local carriers wrote Monday in a letter to the FCC.

The companies favor a narrower regulation that a wireless industry group has said would allow one in eight landline customers, instead of a larger group, to move their home numbers to mobile phones. FCC officials have said they would make a decision before Nov. 24, the same day wireless carriers must let consumers switch carriers and keep their mobile numbers.

FCC spokesman David Fiske didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.