ANCOM announced today through a press release that phone numbers can be ported in 3 days from one mobile phone operator to another, and below you have all the information.
Starting today, a phone number can be ported in 3 days
03.09.2012
ANCOM's decision regarding the modification of the technical and commercial conditions for porting telephone numbers entered into force on September 2. Starting from this date, the term for activating a ported number will be a maximum of one working day, as stipulated by European rules, and the maximum duration of administrative procedures related to porting is reduced from 10 to 3 working days.
ANCOM's decision reduces the deadlines in which suppliers have the obligation to carry out the specific activities associated with the different phases of the porting process. Thus, the deadline in which the donor supplier must respond to a porting request is reduced from 4 working days to a single day. The reduction of this term will allow the porting to be carried out faster, even in cases where the donor provider identifies problems when filling out the application and it is necessary to re-introduce it.
After validating the porting request, subscribers requesting porting will have their phone number activated within one working day at most. The maximum potential service interruption duration during the porting process is reduced to 4 hours instead of 5 hours (in the case of porting landline numbers) and to 3 hours instead of 4 hours (in the case of porting mobile numbers). In practice, the duration of the service interruption is shorter, the average for the first semester of 2012 being approximately 90 minutes for landline numbers and 30 minutes for mobile numbers.
In cases where the end user and the accepting supplier mutually agree on a specific date for the porting to be carried out, the duration of the entire process may be longer than three days, taking into account certain specific circumstances (correlation of the carrying out of the porting with the date on which the contract expires with the donor supplier, installation of access infrastructure, etc.). In order to meet these requirements, the IT system used to manage porting processes is a flexible one.
At the same time, subscribers will have the opportunity to refuse the assignment by the accepting provider of a temporary telephone number, to be used until the porting is carried out. In the event that subscribers decide to accept a provisional number, this decision expressly provides the right to choose, in real terms, between the continuation or not of contractual relations with the accepting provider, in the event that the porting process is not completed, respectively to be properly informed about the consequences of their choice.
At the same time, additional obligations were imposed on providers of electronic communications services to avoid abusive porting.
Between September 15 and November 15, 2012, ANCOM will run an information campaign through radio and the Internet to increase the number of telephone users who know the existence and meaning of the sound signal that the caller hears when calling a ported telephone number. The sound signal will be publicized through radio spots, banners on the Internet and through the website www.portabilitate.ro.
In addition, as part of the campaign, ANCOM will make available to users of the social networking site facebook.com an application through which any user who has ported their number can notify their friends that they have changed their telephone operator.
Current status of ported numbers
From the launch of portability on October 21, 2008 until the beginning of August 2012, the number of portings exceeded 800.000. The proportion between fixed and ported mobile numbers remained relatively constant, 68% of the total ported numbers, i.e. over 550.000, being mobile phone numbers. Until July 31, 2012, 813.582 telephone numbers were ported, of which 553.154 mobile telephone numbers and 260.428 fixed telephone numbers.
In 2012, up to now, a total of 136.187 numbers were ported, of which 96.820 were mobile numbers and 39.367 were landline numbers (a monthly average of 19.455 portings). This year, the most portings were registered in January (27.823 numbers).
More information about phone number portability in Romania is available on www.portability.ro.
