{"id":547988,"date":"2006-02-13T20:53:02","date_gmt":"2006-02-13T20:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/547988-effective-inexpensive-or-free-number-portability-key-to-competition.html"},"modified":"2006-02-13T20:53:02","modified_gmt":"2006-02-13T20:53:02","slug":"effective-inexpensive-or-free-number-portability-key-to-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/547988-effective-inexpensive-or-free-number-portability-key-to-competition.html","title":{"rendered":"Effective inexpensive or free number portability key to competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The statement from the group, of which the Communications Users Assocation of South Africa (CUASA) is a member, states that Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has been implemented in the vast majority of developed countries without any discernible harm to operators or significant technical problems. <\/font><\/p>\n

However, in some instances, operators have made the implementation so difficult and done it so grudgingly, that the effectiveness has been damaged. In some countries, MNP has been subject to protracted delaying tactics by established operators.<\/font> <\/p>\n

"The international viewpoint on both mobile and fixed-line number portability is an important guide for South Africa as we establish our own number portability regime," says CUASA’s Ray Webber. <\/font><\/p>\n

"A number portability system where the user is effectively penalised for choosing to switch operators will not, in our opinion, prove to be effective for competition," he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

"We are concerned that powerful players in the industry could leverage significant pressure to ensure high number transfer costs or simply drag their feet enough for consumers to lose faith in the efficiency of number portability \u2013 effectively nullifying the possibility of increased competition and service levels arising from the system," Webber continues. <\/font><\/p>\n

South Africa’s MNP regulations, which were published on 30 September 2005, say that specifications must be drafted with input from users. Network operators were required to prepare an ordering system specification for number portability to be lodged with ICASA by the end of October 2005, and this to be carried out in consultation with interested parties. <\/font><\/p>\n

Besides CUASA, we are unaware of any user groups or interested parties which were invited to participate in the drafting of this specification. It is therefore logical to conclude that the existing operators have had the lions share in terms of input for the specification. Of the three, it would appear that only Cell C has much to gain from the implementation of MNP.<\/font> <\/p>\n

"While cellular operators have until the end of June this year to put the technology in place, our overall fear is that without any significant user participation, South Africa’s MNP system will not be implemented in-line with INTUG’s recommendation for cheap or free portability," says Webber.<\/font> <\/p>\n

"Already clause 7 (6) of the NMP regulations allows for up to a 10% increase for ported calls. While we recognise that costs associated with the setting up of a central number authority, administration and infrastructure will not be insignificant, even a 5% increase in call costs could damage the viability of NMP from a user perspective," Webber concludes.<\/font> <\/p>\n

A related INTUG positioning paper on numbers and numbering takes the view that a telephone number signifies an individual or an organisation and is therefore their property, under the custodianship of an independent national authority. Numbers, they say, do not belong to operators.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0 <\/font>http:\/\/www.cuasa.org.za<\/font> <\/a><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without free or very inexpensive number portability, mobile telecommunications markets cannot be considered to be effectively competitive, according to an official statement from the International Telecommunications Users Group (INTUG).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547988\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}