Johannesburg, 05 Aug 2008
Neotel says fixed-line geographic number portability (GNP) will have a better response than the effort made by the mobile providers.
According to Rajeev Sinha, Neotel's products senior manager, there has been a keen interest by possible enterprise clients in porting Telkom numbers to Neotel's services.
"The primary interest is that customers are looking at a better price point, which we can offer. They are also hoping to keep the current business contact details they have."
He says porting in a fixed-line environment can be better controlled than in the mobile space, adding that fixed-line number changes could have a heftier impact on business operations.
Neotel has just completed the test phase of porting a large block numbers to its own network from Telkom. "While they are currently still executing the test cases to check routing, billing and so on, it is a massive step toward giving SA corporate customers the freedom to choose," says the company.
When testing of number portability started between Telkom and Neotel in March, IDC analyst Richard Hurst said South Africans should not expect a huge impact from GNP. "When we look at how mobile number portability worked out, we shouldn't get our hopes too high."
The implementation should be easier, because there are fewer numbers and, therefore, less onerous database management, he noted. He said the biggest winners will be value-added network service providers (VANs), which will now be able to compete more effectively with Telkom.
However, mobile number portability has been described as a failure due to the restrictive contract settlement fees asked by most operators. This is not the case with fixed-lines.
Neotel's executive head of the enterprise group Stefano Mattiello says: "We have been working very closely with Telkom to put the necessary systems in place for geographic number portability."
According to Mattiello, the process of portability will be seamless. "During the porting process, the numbers will be advertised on both the Telkom and Neotel networks for 48 hours to allow for a smooth transition and ensure that all calls continue to be routed without interruption."
Mattiello says the next-generation network Neotel has deployed has inherent number portability capabilities. "This means that we have not needed to deploy any additional technologies and, therefore, it has been much easier for us to get to this stage."
The test run by Neotel had no live customers in the number block, however, a few pilot cases will soon be incorporated in the tested block of numbers.
According to Sinha, the portability service will be available commercially as of next month. "We are also in the process of testing the smaller business number blocks and a consumer service."
He expects the consumer service will begin the testing phase next month, and says further details on its commercial availability will be released closer to the time.
Telkom could not respond to ITWeb at the time of publication.
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