Ofcom decrees number portability within two hours
Rating: rejoice – eventually
Well, it’s been a long time coming, but finally a regulator has really put the boot in on number portability. On Wednesday the UK’s regulator Ofcom said it is setting new rules by which consumers must be able to receive calls on their new number within two hours – at the moment, it takes five days – a pretty effective deterrent to changing service provider.
In addition, industry will be obliged to ensure that the new porting process includes the necessary levels of protection for consumers. This will be something of a challenge for an industry not famed for its customer service now, without this added extra dimension, which presumably is why the two hour transfers for mobile numbers doesn’t have t be implemented by 1 September 2009 – they need a long run-up.
Ofcom is also requiring industry to co-operate to create a common database to handle calls and to pave the way for more efficient call routing. Ofcom’s consultation considered whether a database (which will reduce total costs and benefit consumers) would occur without regulation but concluded that targeted regulation was a better outcome for consumers.
A database will also ensure that consumers are not affected by problems with their old network, after they have ported their number. The new database will make it possible to route calls to ported numbers directly to the new provider’s network without the call having to travel over the former service provider’s network.
All of which is very good news for consumers, but surely all of this number portability stuff should have been in place from early on in the proceedings, mirroring what was going on in fixed line regulation adn trying to head off the problems that were encountered there? Over two decades after the road to liberalisation in telecoms was embarked upon, we’re finally to get a really important mechanism for competition and choice in place in mobile - in the UK anyway.
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