Telecommunications company Neotel on Tuesday said it will be ready for individual number porting in April.

“The porting of numbers in blocks of 10 000 or 1 000 has been available for some months now,” said Angus Hay (pictured), executive head of technology at Neotel.

This had excluded many businesses as it was only relevant to very large corporations, Hay said.

Geographic number portability is defined as the process via which customers can transfer their fixed-line number from one operator to another — maintaining their telephone number but switching operators.

“Some large customers have already ported a number of 10 000 and 1 000 blocks to Neotel,” Hay said.  “In addition, we are already testing 100-block porting, and as of April will be able to do 100 block and individual porting for any customer.”

The Independent Communications Authority of SA ruled on 18 December that ported numbers had to be indicated to the consumer by the sound of three beeps while a call was being connected, as was currently the industry standard with ported cellular numbers.  — Sapa

• Subscribe to our free daily newsletter
• Follow us on Twitter or on Facebook