Number portability is a service made available by the providers of electronic communications networks and services (ECNS) to the end-users, which enables them to keep their telephone numbers, while shifting to another provider of electronic communications services.
In order to be able to offer this service, an ECNS provider has to follow a series of technical, operational and administrative steps, all these activities requiring coordination at a national level.
The number portability service is implemented within a general regulatory framework (Decision no. 144/2006) that enabled the establishment of all the necessary details by means of a Working Group consisting of representatives of ECNS providers and of the Authority. Thus, after thorough consultation with the market players, ANCOM adopted the Technical and commercial conditions for the implementation of number portability (CTC), by decision no. 3444/2007.
Subsequently, these documents were reviewed following practical experience or the amendment of the primary legislation.
Implementation conditions
General conditions
In the context of number portability, electronic communications providers have two types of obligations:
- The obligation to provide the number portability service applies to all FSCEs that have acquired the right to use numbering resources from the PNN;
- The obligation to ensure the routing of calls to ported numbers applies to providers that:
- originate calls through numbers from the PNN, except for the cases provided for in letter b);
- offer transport services at national level through the carrier selection or pre-selection procedure, using carrier selection codes, or through numbers from the PNN that allow indirect access to services (for example, 0808);
- operate switches or equivalent elements (gateways) where international calls arrive to be terminated in public electronic communications networks on the territory of Romania.
Call Routing
The method of routing calls to ported numbers is ACQ (All Call Query), identifying the network to which the call must be directly routed based on the use of routing numbers (routing numbers are 5-digit sequences of the form 18xyz and are allocated by ANCOM in accordance with the provisions of Decision no. 380/2013 on the allocation and use of technical resources.
Tariffs
Donor providers have the right to recover their costs associated with the porting of each number from the accepting providers, the applicable tariffs being limited to:
- 4.64 euros (excluding VAT) for each ported number (for geographic numbers, location-independent numbers and non-geographic numbers, other than mobile);
- 2.13 euros (excluding VAT) for each ported number, in the case of mobile numbers.
Information
Each FSCE obliged to provide the portability service must establish and make available to the public a procedure for submitting and validating the porting request containing information regarding the porting request (standard form), the documents required to be presented by the applicants, the locations where the requests can be submitted and their schedule, the deadlines provided by the regulations for carrying out the porting, the tariffs associated with the porting as well as any other information considered useful by the respective provider to ensure the porting processes are carried out in good conditions.
After the porting is carried out, the providers that originate calls are obliged to insert, with each call to a ported number, a distinctive tone indicating that the number is ported, at least in the situation where the tariff due for the call to the ported number is higher than the tariff that would have been due if the number had not been ported.
Porting process
The porting process is managed by the accepting provider. Number porting is carried out only upon the express request of the subscriber, which is submitted to the accepting provider.
Each provider establishes the modalities and procedure for receiving porting requests. The documents requested by the accepting provider are established in its own procedure, through which the authenticity of the information presented by the applicant must be established, in order to validate the request (e.g. identity documents, invoices, affidavits). In the case of porting numbers used on prepaid cards, the SIM card series must be verified.
Both numbers used for subscription-based services and numbers used for prepaid cards can be ported. The reasons for refusal of porting by the donor provider are strictly limited, as provided for in Decision 144/EN/2006. The existence of debts of the subscriber to the donor provider, the existence of a minimum duration of the contract or the suspension of the provision of the service through the respective number cannot constitute grounds for refusal of the request for number porting.
By submitting a porting request, users implicitly request the termination of the telephone contract they have with the donor provider. Therefore, no termination request must be submitted to the donor provider. The contract between the subscriber and the donor provider regarding the provision of services through the ported number terminates on the date of porting. If the telephone services are part of a service package, the other services may continue, depending on the contractual provisions. The termination of the contract between the subscriber and the donor provider is carried out in compliance with the conditions provided for in the respective contract. The porting applicant has the obligations provided for in the contract with the donor provider, arising and not performed prior to its termination.
The porting is carried out on the date agreed between the subscriber and the service provider. As a rule, porting takes place on the third business day from the submission of the application, but, at the subscriber’s request, the deadline may be postponed without exceeding 25 business days from the date of the porting request. The interruption of the electronic communications service, on the date established for porting, must not exceed the deadlines provided for in the Technical and Commercial Conditions for the Implementation of Number Portability (CTC).
Centralized database – BDC
The solution chosen and put into practice for the implementation of number portability in Romania is based on an IT system managed by ANCOM, called BDC (Centralized Database).
Role of BDC
The BDC IT system consists of a database that stores information in a specific form, as well as a set of functions that perform operations on the data and ensure communication with the IT systems of electronic communications providers. For the porting of each number, a series of specific activities are carried out that require information exchanges between providers throughout the porting process. This information is exchanged through the BDC in the form of standardized messages, according to the specifications provided for in the Decision of the President of ANCOM no. 3444/2007 (CTC). Upon completion of each porting process, the BDC IT system updates a reference database containing the ported numbers and the associated routing numbers. This is not used directly for call routing, for this purpose, each FSCE maintaining its own operational database.
Access to the BDC
The use of the BDC is mandatory in order to exchange information between providers during porting processes and to update routing information related to ported numbers in the providers’ IT systems.
This information may constitute personal data or may be confidential. Each provider’s access uses part of the BDC’s processing, storage and communication resources. For these reasons, the CTC provided that access to the BDC be granted exclusively to providers who need the information contained in the BDC to fulfill their obligations to ensure number portability.
Thus, access to the BDC is granted to providers of publicly available electronic communications services that hold the right to use some numbering resources from the PNN and to providers of public electronic communications networks that have obligations to route calls to ported numbers.
Public information
The BDC provides data for a publicly accessible website that provides information on number portability. Through this page (www.portabilitate.ro), end users have a search engine available to find out if a number is ported, and to which network it is ported. Additional information and frequently asked questions regarding number portability can also be found here.