Number Portability
What is number Portability?
What is number portability?
Number Portability is an obligation on all service providers providing a Publicly Available Telephone Service (PATS) to customers. This obligation is set out in Regulation 26 of the Universal Service Regulations 2003. Geographic Number Portability (GNP) was first introduced in Ireland in 2001 and is the process by which a consumer can port their fixed line, geographic telephone number to another service provider.
Number Portability is the facility which enables customers to retain their telephone number independently of the operator providing the service. All operators are obliged to provide number portability as a customer right under the Universal Service Regulations (SI308/2003). Number portability enables customers to choose to move between operators, where they may get a better deal on tariffs or services with another operator, without incurring the additional cost and inconvenience of a number change. There are three different types of number portability; Geographic, Non-geographic and Mobile.
- Geographic Number Portability, GNP enables any fixed line customer to move or port their telephone number(s) to any other available operator.
- Non - Geographic Number Portability, NGNP enables customers to transfer their non-geographic number service (e.g. freephone, lo-call, VoIP numbers between host providers.
- Mobile Number Portability, MNP enables mobile customers to retain their mobile number when moving between mobile telephony operators.
Transfer process fixed line/mobile/broadband
Transfer Process Fixed line/mobile/broadband
The customer contacts their service provider of choice to request to transfer their telephone number and phone service to them. Once the customer has given their authorisation to transfer the telephone number to the new service provider, the new service provider then contacts the customer’s previous service provider to inform them that the customer is transferring telephone number (mobile or fixed line service), which enables the old service provider to make the necessary technical changes.
