Official - ‘Keep your number’ ruling extended

The Commerce Commission has officially extended the current arrangement surrounding number portability for both local and mobile telephone numbers for another six years.

Number portability enables a customer to change their telecommunications provider but retain the same telephone number.

Dr Ross Patterson, Telecommunications Commissioner, said that recent figures show half a million consumers have ported their numbers since it was introduced in April 2007, with 170,000 numbers ported in the last year.

“Number portability enhances competition in telecommunications by allowing customers to easily change providers while keeping their existing telephone number. This saves them the inconvenience, time and expense of updating all their friends, family and colleagues of new contact details every time they change providers. These issues can have a major impact on people’s decision to switch service providers,” he continued.

The first number portability determination was issued in 2005 and was to expire in December 2010.

This new ruling extends the existing arrangement to December 2016 and will continue the standards and systems of the original.

For those interested, you can read the final determination on the Commission’s website.