Johannesburg, 08 Oct 2009
Vox Orion MD Jacques du Toit has renewed his call for ICASA to force the pace of geographic number portability, saying South African companies are being denied the opportunity to choose the most competitive telecommunications service providers.
“Changing phone numbers is expensive and risky,” says Du Toit. “Even though we offer our customers rebates on incoming voice traffic to help bring down their telecoms bill, that's not enough to compensate for the hassle of changing all their phone numbers. Until everyone can keep the same numbers regardless of which provider they use, the playing fields will never be level.”
Full fixed number portability was supposed to have been implemented by the end of last year, says Du Toit. “We have not only got it late, we have got much less than what was promised. At the moment only customers with blocks of 1 000 consecutive numbers or more, a tiny minority of companies, can port their numbers. There is no way the majority can benefit.” This furthermore excludes any special numbers like 0800 and 0861/2.
Du Toit dismisses Telkom claims that the process is technically difficult. “They've had six years to prepare for this, there's no excuse. What's really happening is that they are trying to lock customers into new long-term contracts before the market opens up.” These kind of initiatives are preventing smaller players to compete in what is supposed to be a deregulated market.
With full number portability promised for 2010, Du Toit has called on ICASA to put its foot down to ensure the deadline is met. “Since 2004, the deadlines have shifted many times, and we've heard a long series of excuses. Enough is enough now: let's get on with it.”
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