New specifications on the portability of landlines.

The Spanish National Commission on Financial Markets and Competition (CNMC) recently approved an update of the technical specifications regarding the portability of landlines.

Which are the new landline portability specifications?

The portability of landlines is the process of transferring a number from one operator to another, that is to say, it has nothing to do with the data lines or services linked to them. Thus, the specifications set out how the processing of information exchanges between operators should be to manage portability and any incident or the signalling mechanism between operators’ networks.

Corporate portability.

As explained by the CNMC, corporate portability will be improved from now, and thanks to the new changes, it would be easier to get more information to shorten deadlines.

This kind of portability is usually much more complicated for companies with different headquarters and lines, and it takes more time to complete the portability.

The obligation to maintain the number.

All operators must keep the number of any subscriber who wants to unsubscribe without portability for a month.

This change only used to apply to numbers that also had carried out portability before, but it will be for everyone from now.

The purpose of this functionality is to help users to recover their numbers if they have unsubscribed without portability, either by the user’s desire or by mistake.

Prevent numbering theft.

These specifications also include a protective mechanism against numbering theft.

This mechanism consists in registering a specific incident in the Incident Management System and blocking the portability for a maximum period of 15 days.