Fixed-line portability

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 28 January 2007

Both Neotel and Telkom are required to make sure their networks are number portability friendly by February this year. Will they be ready?

We’re not planning to bore you with all the details but only focus on the basics.

What’s fixed-line portability?

It boils down to this: “Telkom and Neotel should enable customers to move to another operator and keep their geographically linked numbers” (Fixed-line portability by February?, Senne and Mawson, 24 January 2007).

Will they be ready?

It’s difficult to say whether they will be ready or not. By the looks of things it’s safe to say that it will probably not happen by February because of:

• Legal and technical requirements  – Neotel, Telkom as well as Icasa ‘will have to meet legal and technical requirements before fixed-line number portability can be implemented (Fixed-line portability by February?, Senne and Mawson, 24 January 2007).

• Willingness  – It’s clear from their comments that Neotel is more willing than Telkom to provide fixed-line portability. We’re sure Telkom will do everything in its power to derail efforts in this regard. They will pull a lot of lame excuses out of their ‘magical hat’ like so many times before.

Neotel has made it clear that ‘its network will support number portability from the beginning of operations’ while Telkom failed to ‘respond to questions as to its readiness to provide fixed-line portability’ (Fixed-line portability by February?, Senne and Mawson, 24 January 2007).

Telkom did respond on the time frame required to implement fixed-line portability though: “Telkom will be unable to determine the time required to implement number portability until the functional specification regulations are published…” (Fixed-line portability by February?, Senne and Mawson, 24 January 2007).

ADSL South Africa doesn’t want to play devil’s advocate but you can bet Telkom will find a way out with their screwed up interpretations of regulations. They have proven that they can water down regulations to the point where it has no effect whatsoever. Just look into the matter of ADSL pricing and Telkom’s reaction to the regulations drawn up by Icasa after the public hearings last year, then tell us with a straight face that you believe that they will help to bring fixed-line number portability to the table on time…

One can understand why Neotel is keen to see fixed-line portability being implemented on time because it will definitely make the decision to switch even easier. Neotel knows that many of us are sick and tired of Telkom and will switch when the opportunity presents itself, especially when one knows that you will be able to keep your old number. Even if we see fixed-line portability in time, you can expect to see dirty tactics… Telkom can learn a lot in this regard from MTN and Vodacom.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) welcomes any efforts to implement fixed-line portability as soon as possible and on time. Fixed-line portability will make it easier for people to switch between fixed-line operators while keeping their numbers.