On January 21, 2008, the Decision of the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology no.3.444/2007 on the adoption of the Technical and Commercial Terms for the implementation of number portability, published in the Romanian Official Journal, Part I, no. 44 of January 18, 2008, entered into force.
”Starting from October 21, 2008, all the users will have the possibility to benefit from the number portability service within 10 days from the date of submitting a request to the operators they subscribe to. The subscribers’ possibility to keep their telephone numbers while shifting to another provider ensures greater freedom of choice and removes an important barrier to competition development in the electronic communications sector. Number portability will incentivise the subscribers to consider alternative offers, will open their possibility to choose the most suitable or advantageous offer and thus will enhance competition between providers, the ANRCTI President, Mr. Dan Georgescu, declared.
Number portability is a service available for the users of telephone services, allowing them to keep their telephone number when shifting to other providers of telephone services.
When a user gives up the telephone services provided by one operator (donor provider) in favour of those provided by another operator (acceptor provider), the donor provider shall not charge the user any porting costs, whereas the acceptor provider bears the respective costs and decides upon transferring part of these costs to the user. ANRCTI imposes one condition: if the acceptor provides decides to charge the end-user certain tariffs, these tariffs should be affordable.
In view of accurately informing the end-users on the porting process, the telephony providers have the obligation to provide information, cost-free, by means of the Customer/Client Service, to send cost-free written notices, upon request, to publish it on the company’s website, or to post/make available the porting request and the procedure of the porting request entry and validation, at the providers’ commercial offices.
Moreover, as the dialled numbers will no longer be associated with a certain telephone network, the telephony providers have the obligation to inform the users regarding the network where a called number belongs and the tariffs charged for calls to the respective number. Such information shall be made available cost-free, by means of the Customer/Client Service, by written notices and by publishing it on the company’s website, as well as by other means of information (e.g. SMS information service). The Customer/Client Service on number portability issues shall be available 24/24, 7/7.
Furthermore, ANRCTI imposes on the providers who charge different tariffs, based on the call destination network, the obligation to send, at least in case of the ported numbers, cost-free, a distinctive tone by which the end-users should be warned that the respective call is terminated on other public electronic communications networks than the origination one. Alternatively, the providers who originate calls may send, cost-free, a voice message, by which the end-users should be warned that the called number has been ported.
The users will also be provided with a web application, which is to be developed by the operator of the central database, by means of which the end-users may interrogate whether a number is ported and, if so, the provider of publicly available telephone services that offers services by means of the respective number.
Fixed telephone numbers cannot be ported to mobile telephone networks and vice-versa. Number portability will be possible between the fixed telephone networks, if the donor provider and the acceptor provider offer services and have numbering resources allocated in the same county, irrespective of their belonging to the same domain or to different domains (0Z=02 and 0Z=03 – alternative fixed telephony). All the mobile telephony numbers are portable, irrespective of the technology used (2G, 3G, CDMA etc.), of the payment method (prepaid) or of the type of provided services (fax, data transmissions).
The ANRCTI President’s Decision no. 3.444/2007 on the adoption of the Technical and Commercial Terms for the Implementation of Number Portability is available here.