WHAT TO DO TO PORT NUMBERS

WHY THE DELAY, TELKOM?

INTERNET Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (Ispa) yesterday queried why telecoms operator Telkom was delaying non-geographic number portability. It said South Africa launched number portability in 2006 with the ability of mobile users to port their telephone numbers between cellular networks. After 13 years it was still not possible to port non-geographic numbers with prefixes 0800 and 0860, because “one operator with the lion’s share of call centre business that makes use of these valuable, heavily-advertised phone numbers” continued to delay non-geographic number portability. Ispa chairperson, Graham Beneke, said: “During recent public hearings into nongeographic number portability, Telkom’s industry peers and others had to suffer long-winded explanations from the former monopoly as to why it could not swiftly introduce non-geographic number portability. It can, and we all know it.” | Staff Reporter