The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has recommended the establishment of a technical committee to ensure a “quicker response” to the requirements outlined in its newly published Number Portability Findings Report.

The findings report, published earlier this week, showed that, while number portability has positively evolved in South Africa since its launch more than ten years ago, mobile portability has yet to realise its full potential.

The report further highlighted the South African market as changed in many respects since 2006, with portability now facing new challenges that need to be addressed.

“However, those challenges need not fundamentally change the process that has broad support in the industry,” said Icasa, commenting that, while number portability is functioning well overall, it does require closer monitoring.

Icasa embarked on the review process in 2016, completing it by March 2017, with a view to update the relevant regulations through a formal consultation process in the 2017/18 financial year.

The inquiry aimed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the current number portability framework; the impact of the current number portability framework on licensees and the general public; if there are regulatory gaps arising from the market and regulatory development; and what regulatory interventions would be necessary.

This report was compiled following extensive consultation with stakeholders, including Cell C, MTN, Neotel, Ohren Telecoms, Switch Telecom, Telkom and Vodacom, all of which pointed to “specific weaknesses that require changes or updates” to the existing framework.

The authority’s role in the committee, which will comprise industry representatives and hold effective governance rules, will be to actively coordinate the work and remain the only entity that can introduce changes to the process.

“There is strong support for the current number portability process and the role of the Number Portability Company as a central database provider. However, all stakeholders recognise that there are performance issues that need to be addressed with a better enforced process,” Icasa elaborated.

Some of the key findings in the report reveal that the cost per port is generally considered efficient; however, times to port could be reduced, especially with real-time port becoming a standard feature for number portability.

“Although 2016 saw a strong increase in prepaid ports, the percentage of the mobile base porting each year – in particular in the higher-value post-paid segment – lags comparable countries. Timer violations and a high percentage of rejected ports need to be addressed to ensure a more efficient process that customers can trust,” Icasa explained in the report.

“Some adjustments to the current process have been proposed by the operators, including the port lock period, the causes to reject ports, winback activities and tariff transparency methods. The current process is aligned with international standards and only minor changes and clarifications should be considered.

Icasa’s report showed that geographic number portability measured favourably against international benchmarks; however, issues around legacy systems limit the flexibility of portability.

In addition, Icasa noted that the stakeholders “generally agreed” that the scope of fixed portability should be extended to non-geographic numbers.

The authority also noted that a large number of licensed operators with limited resources have had a negative impact on the process, which was hindered by delays in updating routing tables.

Further, customer complaints and issue escalation procedures ought to be revisited. From the review, the authority might be required to play a more active role as an arbitrator to ensure better coordination within the industry.

Number portability is the process that enables end-users to retain their telephone numbers when changing from one network operator to another.