Number portability: Is it worth it?

Johannesburg, 31 Aug 2004

The public hearings on the Independent Communications Authority of SA`s (ICASA) draft regulations for number portability are due to take place on 8 and 9 September, with all indications being that they will be as fiery as the many that have gone before them.

Number portability - allowing a subscriber to change service providers without altering their telephone number - has been a contentious issue for some time now, and the hearings will give the various telecoms players a chance to air their views on the subject.

According to the Communication Users Association of SA (CUASA), the organisation has fully supported recent telecommunication liberalisation attempts, and believes that in the context of such liberalisation, number portability will form a key component of the foundation for telecommunications services and it is also absolutely key for the introduction of competition.

In its submission for the forthcoming public hearings, CUASA says: "Having reviewed the draft regulations, we feel they appear to ask more questions than they answer."

"While we appreciate that number portability is a complex, emotive and potentially costly issue...it will need to be balanced with technical constraints, practicality, manageability, call cost indication and other associated factors."

Local solution

CUASA also makes the point that the challenges of a successful implementation of number portability in SA must be viewed against this country`s relatively "poor" tradition of industry co-operation.

In order to make number portability successful, CUASA says that what is needed is "a South African-specific solution, not a copy of some other country`s possible success story".

According to ICASA`s draft regulations, telecoms operators will be expected to work together "to offer number portability to their subscribers as soon as reasonably possible, and no later than 1 April 2005".

However, CUASA believes the regulations are far from complete, and therefore a long way from promulgation, making that date appear to be far too premature.

Don Tredoux, MD of Orion Telecom, agrees with this. He says: "There is a huge amount of debate still to be conducted around this issue, so I just cannot see it happening in the time prescribed by ICASA."

He says two of his major worries are that provision is made for the mobile operators to increase their pricing to cover the costs of number portability and that the central database for number portability is supposed to be looked after by Telkom.

"My concern is that by allowing the operators to increase their prices to cover the costs, it leaves the door open for potential abuse of the system, while to have the central database looked after by Telkom is nothing short of a complete joke."

Window of opportunity

Another contentious issue is a requirement that number porting be provided within 12 months of a request, which CUASA believes is pointless, as it says "users cannot wait that long, since they will likely miss any window of opportunity they expect to gain by porting their numbers".

Furthermore, the organisation questions whether "network blocked" or "network locked" mobile phones will be affected by mobile network portability, or if SIM cards can be programmed to circumvent any such limitations and restrictions.

Other concerns raised by CUASA include the fact that inter-connect costs still need to be specified, the regulator needs to provide a list of quality of service parameters against which donor operators and donor service providers will need to report their performance, while a code of practice is also urgently required.

A further problem is that number portability may also complicate least-cost routing, therefore CUASA wants the authority to decide what steps could be taken to enable subscribers to maximise their call cost savings.

Tredoux says he worries that number portability will increase the time it takes to make a phone call, since a database dip will have to be done before the call connects.

"We could have users having to wait several more seconds before connecting, and the question is, if only a small percentage of people are using number portability, should the majority have to suffer because of it?

"We should be asking what would be the most beneficial to the majority of consumers. In fact, what government should be focusing on is sorting out the SNO [second national operator], rather than worrying about an issue that is of debatable value to consumers in the first place."

Telkom spokesman Ravin Maharaj says the company is in the process of preparing its response to the draft regulations, but these will only be made public at the hearings next week.

None of the cellular operators were available for comment at the time of publication.