The long awaited advent of number portability in Cayman will have to wait just a little bit longer.
On Friday, 27 January, the Information and Communications Technology Authority, which regulates the telecommunications industry in the Cayman Islands, announced the implementation date would be pushed back from 31 January to 20 February. According to the authority, this step was taken to ensure the operators had sufficient time to complete their testing before implementation.
In a letter to the member of the consortium of telecoms companies working on the project, Mr. David Archbold, managing director of the authority, stated that in the light of recent updates from the operators on the progress of number portability testing, the authority decided it would be in the best interest of the public if the date were pushed back.
“The licensees have not yet completed their inter-operator testing and we did not want the public to have to suffer as a result,” said Mr. Archbold.
In the letter, Mr. Archbold urged the consortium members to use the additional time to complete thorough inter-operator testing and to ensure their response to porting requests will be effective and efficient.
When implemented, number portability will allow customers to keep their mobile or fixed line numbers when moving to a different service provider. However, mobile numbers cannot be moved to fixed line, nor fixed line numbers to mobile.
There are also circumstances under which an operator may refuse a porting request, including bill payments not being up to date.
According to Tony Ritch, general manager of LIME Cayman Islands, the company is ready for number portability rollout.
“LIME was ready for local number portability to begin on 31 January; however, this process requires all operators to be ready at the same time. LIME has tested the process with both Telecayman and Logic, however, Digicel has been unable to commence testing with us,” he said.
Chris Haydon, business solutions and sales manager for Telecayman, echoed Mr. Ritch’s statement on the company’s readiness for number portability.
“Telecayman is ready to participate in local number portability immediately in the Cayman Islands. Our systems are in place and we have been trained by the application hosting company,” he said.
Victor Corcoran, chief executive officer of Digicel Cayman said Digicel had completed all possible system upgrades and is ready for number portability, but the company is waiting on a decision by the Information and Communications Technology Authority before it can move forward.
“We can do no further work until the ICTA make a decision on some outstanding technical specifications, which will affect how number portability works. Only once the ICTA has made this decision, will we be in a position to comment on what changes or additional work maybe required,” Mr. Corcoran said.
He went on to say that until the decision is known it is “too early to confirm if the 20th of February date is realistic or will be missed like earlier deadlines”.
According to documentation available on the authority’s website, LIME has filed a determination request with the authority with regards to the inclusion of routing numbers in signalling messages. LIME contends this is necessary in order to route calls correctly and ensure that dropped calls do not result. However, according to Digicel, its infrastructure will not be able to accommodate the extra digits required to include routing numbers. Digicel is in favour of direct interconnection between all service providers, which LIME contends would have a chilling effect on the growth of competition in the market due to higher barriers to entry for new service providers.
In spite of the challenges, Mr. Ritch said he remains positive number portability will happen.
“LIME has been the driving force behind local number portability for the last two years and we were extremely disappointed with this delay. However, we now look forward to 20th February as the new ‘go live’ date to give customers across the Cayman Islands the freedom to move operators without losing their number,” he said.
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