House Bill 1098 & 3408: Number Portability

According to this Committee Schedule, the House of Representatives would have started discussion on two ICT bills involving the portability of cell phone numbers.

The respective House Bills are:

HB 1098 – Providing and promoting number portability for cellular mobile telephone service (Rep. Joey Salceda)

HB 3408 – Mandating mobile phone service providers to give their subscribers the option to retain their numbers (Rep. Joseph Santiago)

Once this goes thru, mobile phone users will be able to retain their old number whenever they switch mobile service providers. I hope they get this thru as quickly as possible ‘coz i feel them telcos with be heavily lobbying against it. This feature is already available in the US.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

10 Comments

Eugene says:

19 years ago

Number portability is a really, really good feature. But I really think that it will be hell to implement technically (I’m just guessing, though). There are certain advantages in knowing that 917 is Globe and 918 is Smart and so on, and it makes network implementation and maintenance simpler and more cost-effective for the telcos.

I expect a lot of headaches if and when these bills will be passed into laws.
- Reply
Abaniko says:

19 years ago

If this will be implemented, it’s easy for subscribers to switch service providers which will be a big headache to telcos as it will result in high churn rates.
- Reply
Noemi Dado says:

19 years ago

I wonder if our TELCOS would like this. This is quite a convenience for consumers though and it will keep competition on its toes.
- Reply
J. Angelo Racoma says:

19 years ago

They even have landline # portability in the UK!
- Reply
Miguel says:

19 years ago

This is going to be trouble for content providers/value added service providers. I think the parties concerned should open a new block of numbers, e.g. 099x-xxxx, for portable ones.
- Reply
demonhale says:

19 years ago

BTW, where did Mr.Slackers site go? LOL

As for those numbers, I would really like it to happen, since I got a lot of numbers and I want to have problems later on…
- Reply
Unsentpostcards says:

19 years ago

Yup, it’s already available in the US. This option is good for the consumers; ideally, the companies will constantly try to provide the best service not only to gain more customers/subscribers but also the retention of their customers.

The thing is, one way for these companies to go around this – assuming the bills will be passed into laws – is to charge higher fees for switching to a different network. So, the option may be available for us consumers but I fear that it’s not gonna be that affordable.
- Reply
Abe Olandres says:

19 years ago

I think this bill is really pro-consumer. One of the many barriers why subscribers are having a hard time switching providers is because they won’t be able to retain their numbers.

These switchers are the ones who are not satisfied with their current providers, not the ones who merely want to get a better deal in terms of free credits or phones.

In the end, with this feature in place, telcos will be more focused on retaining subscribers in the long haul and improving their coverage, service and pricing, not the sporadic number crunching battle for short-term switchers.
- Reply
Jaypee says:

19 years ago

this would really benefit the consumers. with this happening, im sure the telcos would be really competitive with their pricing. it’s true that what kept most users from switching is the issue of keeping their numbers.
- Reply
Trina says:

19 years ago

It’s about time!
- Reply