20.01.2021  

945,186 telephone numbers were ported in 2020, of which 92% (873,519) mobile telephony numbers and 71,667 fixed telephony numbers. The monthly average amount of ported numbers in 2020 was lower than in the previous year, down from 79,902 in 2019 to 78,766 ported numbers. December, October and January were the months with the highest amounts of ported numbers: 99,828, 93,249, respectively 86,947 ported numbers.   

In 2020, 84% of the porting processes were initiated by natural persons and 16% by legal persons, with 31 providers of fixed and mobile telephony involved in these processes throughout the year.

Thus, since 2008 – when the number portability service was launched in Romania – almost 7.3 million numbers switched networks. 6.4 million of these are mobile telephony numbers (87%) and more than 900 thousand numbers are fixed telephony numbers.

Mobile telephony

873,519 mobile telephony users switched providers in 2020. Most users chose RCS & RDS – 377,536, while Telekom Romania Communications acquired 141,795 users through the porting process, Vodafone – 133,158, Orange – 125,633, and Telekom Romania Mobile Communications – 95,375.

Out of the 873,519 mobile telephony numbers ported in 2020, 55% were subscription-based numbers.

Fixed telephony

In 2020, 71,667 fixed telephony numbers were ported, i.e. 8% of all the numbers ported the last year. Most of the fixed telephony numbers ported went to the largest providers, as follows: RCS & RDS – 34,014, Orange – 13,671, Vodafone – 12,792, Telekom Romania Communications – 4,899 and GTS Telecom – 3,200.

 Of the 71,667 fixed numbers ported in 2020, 11,445 were location-independent numbers, toll-free numbers and Premium Rate Numbers.

During 2020, ANCOM received 211 portability-related complaints, the main causes of discontent for the users being the delayed completion of the porting process, the occurrence of technical problems in the porting process (such as the delay of messages entered by the providers in the centralized database or routing issues), as well as issues related to the cancellation of the porting process.

About number portability

ü  Number portability ensures the users’ freedom of choice, enabling them to keep their telephone number, while switching providers.

ü  For information purposes, ANCOM makes available to the users the website portabilitate.ro, where they can find the network of any ported telephone number used in Romania, may it be ported or not, as well as useful tips for preventing possible problems in the porting process.

ü  ANCOM provides support to the operators for the smooth unfolding of the porting processes, but cannot approve, reject or cancel the porting requests (these actions can only be taken by the providers, upon the users' request and in compliance with the legislation in force).

ü  Users who want to port their telephone number are advised to check the contract they have with the current operator; if the minimum contract period has not expired, they will most likely be in a position to pay penalties for early termination of the contract, especially if a terminal has also been purchased along with the communications services.

ü  For mobile telephony, the users can visit the online map aisemnal.ro to see the signal quality on the network of the provider to which they intend to port their number, in the areas of interest to them. The map is publicly available therefor, and is based on the results of measurements it carried out by the Authority in 2019 and 2020.