At the beginning of this week, the 100,000th telephone number has been successfully ported in Romania.
”One hundred thousand numbers have been ported. Just as many as to show us that number portability is working and that the Romanian telephony users know about it. Not too many, which proves that the telephony operators are trying hard to keep their customers loyal and satisfied. This is the very aim of portability – empowering the users and incentivizing the operators to do their best” , the ANCOM President, Mr. Catalin Marinescu, declared.
Out of the 100,000 numbers ported so far, 70,845 are mobile telephone numbers, while 29,155 are fixed telephone numbers.
Increasingly more fixed telephony providers are involved in the number portability process. Thus, the 29,155 fixed telephone numbers have been ported to the following providers: A&G Communication – 2, Air Bites – 1, Atlas Telecom – 20, Cobalt IT- 43, Datek Telecom – 5, Dial Telecom – 444, Euroweb – 17, GTS Telecom– 204, Ines Group – 57, Iristel – 10, Media Sat – 25, Necc Telecom – 5, Newcomm – 244, Orange – 1,263, RCS&RDS – 6,486, Romtelecom – 1,250, Telcor – 20, Telemobil – 71, UPC – 14,670, Vip Net – 6, and Vodafone – 4,312.
858 fixed telephone numbers have been ported on average, per week, with a peak in the week 01 – 05 June 2009, when 1,857 numbers were ported, 33 weeks after the launch of number portability. The most numerous numbers were ported in April 2009 – 6,532, whereas the least numerous numbers were ported in November 2008 (the first month after the launch of number portability) – 445.
As regards mobile telephony, all the 5 operators gained new subscribers following the porting process: Cosmote – 26,104, Orange – 17,322, RCS&RDS – 652, Telemobil – 414, Vodafone – 26,353.
1,968 mobile telephone numbers have been ported on average, per week, with a peak in the week 15 – 19 June 2009, when 5,671 numbers were ported, 35 weeks after the launch of number portability. The most numerous numbers were ported in June 2009 – 12,915 -, whereas the least numerous numbers were ported in November 2009 – 4,769.
Out of the 116,578 porting requests for both fixed and mobile telephone numbers, 39,500 were rejected (in a first phase) either by the central database or by the donor provider. Most frequently, the central database rejected the porting requests because either the submitted porting requests were incomplete or erroneously filled in, or the same porting request was submitted several times, or the porting interval was incorrectly chosen. On the other hand, the donor provider invoked the following: the SIM series did not correspond to the number, there were inconsistencies as regards the subscriber and his/her telephone number, the requesters provided invalid subscriber data or inactive telephone numbers.
The Authority gradually extended the ceiling of ported numbers per day, up to 700 mobile telephone numbers and 450 fixed telephone numbers that may be ported today by a donor provider. This ceiling has not been surpassed yet; however, if the porting requests will continue to exceed the set out processing capacities, the ceiling will be extended again.
A user initiating a call to a ported number, prior to completing the call, is warned by a distinctive tone that the called number was ported. Thus, he/she has the possibility to decide if he/she wishes to waive the respective call and get additional information. The users may find out in which network was the telephone number ported from their telephony operator, by means of its Customer Service or by accessing www.portabilitate.ro and using the application intended for locating the ported numbers.
Number portability enables the telephony users to keep their telephone number while changing the service provider. One can port fixed and mobile telephone numbers, as well as special numbers such as those in the 0800 or 0900 ranges. Porting is possible only within the same category of numbers (fixed-fixed, mobile-mobile). The service is available in Romania since 21 October 2008.