The mobile number portability (MNP) regulations do not provide information on how porting charges will be structured, and mobile providers have still not communicated that information to users, says Ray Webber, spokesman for the Communication Users Association of SA (CUASA).
Webber was speaking at a MNP workshop hosted by CUASA in Johannesburg yesterday. The workshop aimed to examine some of the questions business users may have about MNP, he said.
Ewan Sutherland, telecoms consultant and former executive director of the International Telecommunications Users Group, said incumbent service providers in other countries had used high pricing to discourage users from porting. An example is Belgium, where porting charges are high enough to create an entry barrier for users, he said.
Telecoms providers that wish to block the implementation of MNP have also created a long and complicated process in order to discourage porting, he said. For example, in France, a user who wishes to port has to lodge a request with his own operator, submit an application with the recipient operator, then go back to his own operator to finalise the porting process, he said. This process takes six to eight weeks to complete, he said.
"You can get a divorce faster in many European countries than you can get your phone number ported."
The South African porting plan, expected to go into effect in September, provides for a simpler and faster porting process. Mobile phone users who wish to port need only lodge a porting request with the recipient operator, who will confirm or deny the request within one hour, Webber said. Once the request has been granted, the user will decide on the porting date, he said.
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