Phone number portability comes tomorrow
Mar 13, 2007 01:26 PM
Canadian Press
Change cellphone carriers, keep your phone number.
Local wireless number portability arrives in Canada on Wednesday. That means millions of consumers and businesses can switch service providers without worrying about having to change numbers.
It won’t matter if the change is between landline and cellphone providers, or between mobile phone carriers.
The change was mandated by the federal regulator about 18 months ago.
It makes Canada the second country in the world, after the United States, to have complete number portability.
Industry observers expect people who are dissatisfied with their current providers will jump at the chance to switch.
They say that will likely settle down within months, but carriers will be pushed to beef up their services and possibly cut prices.
“The competition has always been quite fierce. So obviously it is going to be another layer of competition for the carriers,” says Marc Choma, spokesman for the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.
