Johannesburg, 27 Jan 2010
Geographic number porting will be available from April, says Neotel.
Testing of number portability started between Telkom and Neotel in March 2008. Neotel was excited by the implementation, because it would provide it access to Telkom customers who did not want to change their existing business numbers.
However, the process has been dragging and, so far, only blocks of 10 000 or 1 000 numbers, which are large corporate customers, have been available for porting.
Neotel is not the only company hoping the implementation will begin in earnest in April. “Unfortunately, [the large blocks of numbers] excluded many businesses, as it is only relevant to very large corporations,” says Angus Hay, executive head of technology at Neotel.
The company says some enterprises have ported to the second national operator; however, having smaller blocks could provide it access to the smaller businesses and consumer clients.
The Independent Communications Authority of SA has not yet confirmed whether it is on track to have porting available by April.
The long delays in geographic number portability have had smaller telecoms operators concerned, saying it hampers their growth opportunities.