The Information and Communications Technology Authority (ICTA) will decide in just a few weeks whether or not to implement a number portability policy – a system where cell phone users can keep their numbers when they change carriers.

Since 2004 the ICTA has been considering and assessing the costs of implementing Local Number Portability (LNP) and after consultations with the Cayman Islands telecommunications industry and the general public ending this month, they will be ready to make a go or no go decision on the matter.

The most obvious benefits of LNP is that subscribers get to hold on to their phone numbers no matter which provider they use and can switch landline numbers to mobile phones, but the driving force of LNP is to create more competition between telecom companies in hopes of bringing rates down.

The general belief within the industry is that the fear of losing a long-held phone number keeps most people from seeking out other carriers even if the fees of those carriers are lower.

General Counsel and Head of Licensing and Compliance for ICTA, David Laliberé, said “If a customer can keep his or her phone number, that customer is a lot more likely to consider alternative providers and not consider him or herself to be locked with the existing incumbent [company].” He went on to say that, “Opening up the competition will hopefully lead to lower prices.”

According to responses gathered during the ICTA’s consultation process back in 2004, nearly all of the public responses received and those from the island’s telecom companies were overwhelmingly in favour of LNP.

“We’ve actually assessed quite a bit on the benefits side and we actually showed a document about a year or two ago basically saying that there are some very significant benefits for the island in our opinion,” he said.

Of all the companies involved in the process, Cable and Wireless stood alone as the only communications provider against LNP.

Mr Laliberé noted, “If you read the submissions that were filed by Cable and Wireless in the previous round of consultations, you will see actually in their submissions that quite clearly there was some resistance.”

Cable and Wireless has long enjoyed the position of being the largest single provider of fixed line and mobile phone services for the Cayman Islands and in their 25 page response to ICTA, they argued against LNP, saying, “Generally, C&W believes LNP is not necessary in the Cayman Islands in order to foster a competitive market,” adding later that “The Cayman Islands experienced a strong and rapid growth of competition and of competitors’ market share, a significant reduction of prices, and the rapid introduction of new services, in the mobile market, even in the absence of LNP.”

Cable and Wireless also noted in its submission that, by law, the ICTA can enact LNP but must determine that the benefits of “number portability outweigh the likely cost of implementing it and the requirement will not impose an unfair burden on any licensee.”

Smaller telecoms like TeleCayman and Cingular were vehemently in favour of LNP and in WesTel’s submission they say that “Local number portability constitutes a fundamental requirement to ensure a level competitive playing field between an incumbent and new service providers. [WestTel] states that under no circumstances should a telephone service subscriber have to abandon an existing telephone number assignment as a precondition to establishing a new service arrangement with a different carrier.”

Digicel encouraged the ICTA to carry out further market research on the matter but said, “Digicel notes a number of benefits, namely: enabling customers to retain numbers cuts out the cost of informing all contact persons/organizations of number changes.”

The ICTA has figured that to implement LNP the cost per customer would amount to 85 cents a month with a one-time transfer fee of 10 dollars.

Mr Laliberé said, “If all the telecommunication providers want to pass on all of the costs to consumers then the worst-case scenario is that every consumer’s bill would increase by 85 cents per month,” but he added that “In fact the licensees, like Cable and Wireless or Digicel, could well decide to just eat up that cost and not pass it on to consumers.”

Mr Laliberé admitted that the price was pretty high but said because of Cayman’s small profile the costs are exaggerated compared to larger countries that can spread out the costs.

“We are a bit different because we are a very small jurisdiction obviously and local number portability has not been implemented in many, if any actually, jurisdictions of this size,” he said.

The island’s communications infrastructure will also have to be updated to service the transition of one number to another carrier and will require the ICTA to hire a third party data firm in the United States to handle the workload.

In 2004, the United States mandated LNP and according to the Federal Communications Commission after just one year over 8 million people changed carriers but kept their numbers and an additional 750,000 changed a landline number to a mobile phone.

The public consultation exercise ends on 30 May but the general public is encouraged to submit their opinions for or against LNP by email to consultations@icta.ky.

trent@caymannetnews.com