Wu-hoo! Verizon, who has been a major opponent of forthcoming cell-phone number portability, has announced it will no longer be opposing the November implementation.

This New York Times article (free reg required), gives the details. My guess is Verizon was getting alot of bad press due to their opposition and by supporting it hopes to get some customers to switch to them come November. A paragraph from the article supports this supposition; “But the move may not be at all bad for Verizon, according to industry analysts. While the company has spent $50 million to prepare its system for portability, it may wind up gaining more customers than it loses, said Blake Bath, a wireless industry analyst with Lehman Brothers. Mr. Bath said Verizon had high customer satisfaction rates and was in “a great position” to capitalize on the dissatisfaction of customers who are signed up with its competitors and could be enticed to switch.”

I think Verizon will get alot of new customers, especially away from Sprint and AT&T where anecdotal evidence indicates customer dissatisfaction is rampant. AT&T and Cingular still oppose number portability.