Number Portability On The Move

St. Vincent and the Grenadines is pressing ahead with the rest of the region on the issue of Number Portability for both fixed and mobile services.

According to the Director at the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC) Apollo Knights, dialogs with other Caribbean nations and the Eastern Caribbean have already started.

The Director said, last week they held fruitful discussions on the issue of number portability with other regional NTRC’s and the Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL); as well as a consultant, who has been contracted to move the process forward.

He added that they are expecting the process to take two years before it can be made available to members of the public.

Mr. Knights pointed out that this move is as a result of a number of persons expressing interest in changing their telecommunications service providers, without the worries of changing their existing telephone numbers.

He expressed that the issue of number portability will transform the telephone network in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Number Portability enables mobile telephone users to keep their telephone numbers when changing from one network operator to another.