Number portability service approved
THE TELECOM COMMITTEE of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission yesterday allowed 7-Eleven convenience stores to take applications from customers for mobile-phone number transfers from one provider to another.
The move is in line with new number-portability regulations that go into effect on Friday, which require customer-service shops that are not part of existing telecom companies to apply for a permit to provide the number-transfer service.
Pravit Leestapornvongsa, a member of the NBTC, said the telecom committee approved the proposal of 7-Eleven operator CP All to become a new number-transfer service point.
However, CP All has to inform the panel later which telecom operators it will provide the service for. CP All did not name any operator in its proposal.
Currently, subscribers have to go to a customer-service shop of the telecom operator that they want to switch to and pay Bt29 per number transfer.
An NBTC source said 7-Eleven would provide the service only for True Corp, which is also under the umbrella of the Charoen Pokphand Group.
A telecom-industry source said CP All had talked with both Advanced Info Service and Total Access Communication (DTAC) about representing them, but could not reach an agreement on the revenue share that CP All would gain from providing the service for those two.
The NBTC’s new regulations require telecom operators to complete a number transfer in two days, down from three days under the old regulations.
Users need only dial 151 followed by their personal identification number and the pound (#) key to check if they are on a blacklist for overdue payment.
Then they will get a text message from the automatic system that they can use to ask to move to another mobile network and keep their existing phone number.
