Number portability chaos hits UK

THE WHOLE of the UK's number portability regime has been thrown into chaos by a legal judgement handed down by the Competition Appeals Tribunal.

Vodafone and the three other largest UK mobile operators have managed to get Ofcom's, the UK telecoms watchdog, original judgement on fast number portability thrown back in its face.

The whole issue surrounds how fast the process is to swap an existing mobile phone number from one operator to another. In the UK it's days while in other countries it can be minutes.

Brits could quite rightly be aggrieved given Vodafone's attitude to number portability in its other territories. In Ireland the company quite happily operates in a fast number portability environment.

In Turkey, Vodafone wouldn't even bid for a 3G licence unless number portability was introduced.

Clearly angry, rival operator 3 UK's CEO, Kevin Russell commented: "This is a technical and legal decision that has somehow completely forgotten the consumer and is in danger of delaying the current process.

This could force the delivery date [for fast porting] back from September 2009 into 2010."

There's actually an entity – called UKporting – which has been quietly working away to put a database in place that would enable UK consumers to switch numbers quickly.

As far as the INQ can see, the work of this body will grind to a halt whilst Ofcom attempts to salvage some sort of policy out of this legal mess. µ

L'Inq
The full legal giggerish

See also
Number portability is rubbish