26.01.2022 

2021 saw a new peak in the number of porting processes, the highest since the portability launch in 2008. Last year, 1,105,771 telephone numbers switched operators, while keeping their users. Among these, 1,050,900 (95%) are mobile telephony numbers and 54,871 are fixed telephony numbers. Thus, 92,148 numbers were ported on average, every month. February, March and December witnessed the most porting processes (more than 100,000/month).

 

In 2021, 87% of the porting processes were initiated by residential users and 13% by business users, while 35 fixed and mobile telephony providers were involved in the respective porting processes.

Since the launch of the number portability service in Romania, in 2008, almost 8.4 million numbers switched networks. 7.4 million of these are mobile telephony numbers (87%) and approx. 1 million are fixed telephony numbers.

Mobile telephony

1,050,900 mobile telephony numbers were ported in 2021. Most users chose the RCS & RDS network, as 561,953 numbers migrated to this network, whereas Orange received 152,939 numbers by porting processes, Vodafone 148,017, Telekom Romania Mobile Communications 105,634, and Telekom Romania Communications 82,333.

 

 

Among the 1,050,900 mobile telephony numbers ported in 2021, 54% (569,784) were subscription-based numbers.

Fixed telephony

In 2021, 54,871 fixed telephony numbers were ported, i.e. 5% of all the numbers ported last year. Most of the fixed telephony numbers that were ported went to the major providers, as follows: RCS & RDS – 30,117, Vodafone – 6,926, Orange – 6,416, GTS Telecom –5,487 and Voxbone – 2,481.

 

 

Among the 54,871 fixed numbers ported in 2021, 7,947 were location-independent numbers, freephone numbers and Premium Rate numbers.

In 2021 ANCOM received 279 complaints regarding number portability. The users were mainly discontented with delays in the porting process, the occurrence of technical problems during this process (such as the providers’ delays in sending messages to the Central Database or routing problems), as well as with difficulties encountered in the porting cancellation.

Useful info:

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

ü  For users’ information, ANCOM makes available the website portabilitate.ro, where they can find the network of any telephone number used in Romania, either 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  When the recipient provider makes available a temporary number to be used until the porting is completed, users are advised to carefully read the section dedicated to the provisional telephone number in the contract they are about to sign; thus, one can avoid subscribing to two operators (the donor and the recipient provider) where the porting process is not carried through.

ü  Users who want to port a telephone number should not contact the current provider for contract termination. Terminating a contract before porting the number could result in loss of that number.

Users who want to port a mobile telephone number 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 has been developed based on the results of measurements the Authority carried out in 2019 and 2020 and is publicly available for consultation. This map is to be updated following the measurements carried out in 2021.