Recently I was interviewed by both CBC Radio and CBC Television for the announcement related to number portability to provide some guidance on what this means to consumers and the telecommunications industry.
The radio interviews were completed from local radio stations coast to coast. It was interesting and enlightening to get the different geographical perspectives related to what this means to Canadian consumers.
The central Canada broadcasters seemed more interested in switching providers on the wireless side. Western Canada seemed more interested in changing services from wired to wireless carriers (probably due to more dependency on wireless communications). Eastern Canada journalists were interested in the ability to change from traditional voice communications delivery to being able to move their number over to VoIP methods.
We found it particularly interesting that the journalists had not considered the possible benefits or pitfalls number portability could have on either the business customer, or the telecom industry as a whole.
What could be the promises of number portability?
For consumers – We believe the long-term benefits for consumers will be the ability to have a personal ‘number identity’ which can move with you as you change medium or as the technology itself evolves.
For business customers – Having pushed for number portability across wired and wireless mediums and vice versa since 1992, we believe that number portability allows companies to move numbers across technologies with the least amount of disruption and cost. For example – changing technologies from TDM to IP – but keeping your main company number the same. Another idea….changing locations and being able to retain your main published number….in the IP world, location becomes irrelevant, so why not?
For the telecom industry – Number portability will drive the industry to improve customer service, develop innovate pricing plans and product program flexibility to have the industry attempt to retain its consumer and business customers.
Roberta Fox is a senior partner for Fox Group Telecom Consulting. You may contact her at Roberta.Fox@FOXGROUP.ca or visit her online at www.foxgroup.ca.