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Business ofcom Regs

Regulators at odds with EU over number porting

EU Commissioner for Communications Vivian Reding has been in the news recently threatening to sue the UK over its stance on behavioural advertising. Her name came up again yesterday at my meeting with Ofcom during a discussion on Number Porting.

The coordinated effort to create a Number Porting system for fixed and mobile numbers ground to a halt last year following a law suit by Vodafone.

In the meantime there is activity going on behind the scenes at the regulators to try and rekindle the movement. Viviane Reding, I understand, is particularly keen to sort out the mobile market.

She apparently wants consumers to be able to walk into mobile retail stores and port their numbers on the spot. Do I hear some clapping coming from the back row?  The problem is that this is at odds with National Governments’ attempts at consumer protection.

Government doesn’t want to let operators and their agents push people into changing suppliers without giving them a cooling off period to reconsider their ways. Quite laudible actually.

I think we are going to have a fun time with Viviane Reding over the next year or two.

Trefor Davies

By Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

One reply on “Regulators at odds with EU over number porting”

Since writing htis post Kerry Ritz commented on Facebook:

the consumer protection argument is a red herring. consumers should be able to port their numbers immediately. there are already existing laws to deal with slamming, etc. just increase the fines for improper behavious–eg £10,000 vs a slap on the wrist. Let’s get viviane reding to also mandate naked dsl and ensure porting of Voip in ALL member states

his point is very valid

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