The legal approval was granted for the Number Portability service, announced Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Director-General Oshada Senanayake addressing a press conference at the President’s Media Centre today.
He said all the service providers were informed about the go-ahead earlier this week to create a central database with all subscribers.
“The central database is required to map the number and we have studied the process from other nations,” he said.
Number Portability will most likely come into service from May 2022, when all technical aspects are fulfilled.
Number Portability (NP) is the ability of telephone subscribers to switch between service providers or locations while retaining their original telephone numbers.
“Telephone subscribers are predominantly reluctant to switch their network operator if they would have to change their telephone number. Therefore, the telephone number acts as a barrier to change the network even if the subscriber is not satisfied with the service offered by the service provider. Since Number portability enables the subscriber of telephone services to change their service provider whilst keeping their existing telephone number it creates an environment which fosters consumer choice,” the TRC said.
“By enabling subscribers to switch between service providers, removing the barriers and inconveniences automatically promotes effective competition among different telecom networks. Also this leads to improving quality of service, network coverage which rewards the service providers who maintain networks successfully. Hence NP has been recognized as an important driver of competition by regulators around the world,” the TRC explained.
“Number Portability which allows subscribers to keep their telephone number when changing operator provides significant benefits to many parties such as to porting users, to callers as well as to the telecom industry as a whole,” the TRC added.
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