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One Million Ported Numbers

04.04.2013

At the beginning of April 2013, Romania reached the threshold of one million ported numbers. Since the introduction of the service allowing the users to keep their telephone number when changing their provider, i.e. on 21 October 2008, the amount of ported numbers has risen every year. 671,095 of the 1,001,364 of numbers ported as of 1 April 2013 were mobile telephone numbers and 330,269 fixed telephone numbers.

The evolution of the amount of ported numbers did not see spectacular shifts over time, but it is obvious that the Romanian users have benefitted from the fact that portability has enhanced their freedom of choice and power of negotiation in the relationship with the providers. 15,681 numbers were ported in the last three months of 2008, 180,239 numbers were ported in 2009, another 221,219 numbers were ported in 2010, up by 23% as compared to 2009, and this trend was maintained in 2011, when the amount of ported numbers grew by 18%, up to 260,256. An amount of 255,893numbers were ported in 2012, out of which 166,371 (65%) mobile telephone numbers and 89,522 (35%) fixed telephone numbers.

The statistical data show that post-paid users are keener to port their numbers (75%) as opposed to prepaid users. In the mobile telephony segment, the operators involved in the porting process share the mobile numbers ported so far as follows: Cosmote accepted 223,450 numbers, Vodafone 220,051, Orange 219,986, RCS & RDS 6,889, and Telemobil 719. As for fixed telephony, 34 providers share between them the numbers ported until now. Out of these, most numbers were ported into the networks of RCS & RDS – 91,936, UPC Romania – 84,274, Orange – 66,200, Vodafone – 59,572 and Romtelecom – 13,291. Most requests for the porting of geographic numbers were registered in Bucharest (102,123 ported numbers), followed by the counties of Cluj (23,425), Timis (17,110), Prahova (16,839) and Galati (14,327).

In order to obtain comprehensive information on the portability process, the telephony users have at their disposal the www.portabilitate.ro website, a portal accessed on average by approx. 11,000 single users per month in the last year. The website provides details with regard to the steps to be taken in order to benefit from this service, answers to the most frequent questions concerning the porting, as well as a few pieces of advice meant to help avoiding all sorts of problems which might occur during the porting process.

The most frequent aspects the users signalled to the Authority in relation to portability concerned the failure of the providers to offer full and adequate information to their customers on the porting process, as well as delayed achievement of porting as compared to the date agreed for its completion. The number of complaints declined substantially over these 4 years, from 196 in 2009 to 112 in 2012.

“Portability is evolving very well: the length of the porting process was reduced to three days, the number of complaints keeps decreasing, while the amount of ported numbers is growing, but most importantly of all the users’ freedom to keep their number when changing their provider fosters competition, and we witness this every day – the offers are more diversified and more attractive, while the operators continue the investments in new networks and technologies”,Mr. Cătălin Marinescu, the president of ANCOM, said.