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In a related development, ElectricNews.Net can reveal that Cap Gemini has won the contract to manage the central database from which the number portability system will operate. While the final value of the contract has yet to be fully agreed, the value of the contract could run into tens of millions of euros.
When the Australian number portability system, on which the Irish system will be modelled, went live last September, the value of the project was around AUD250 million. Price negotiations are ongoing, a source at one of the operators confirmed.
The number portability project is based on a feasibility and timeframe model set down by the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation last year. All three mobile operators -- Vodafone, Digifone and Meteor -- have committed legal and technical teams to the project and have signed off industry agreements on testing the system and how everything should work. Now it depends on the operators themselves to enable the system to work internally to co-operate with the central database that will be managed by Cap Gemini.
Number portability will allow business and consumer mobile phone users to switch to another operator without having to change their 10-digit mobile number, including the 087, 086 or 085 prefix. At present if an Irish mobile phone user wishes to switch to another operator, they can keep the last seven digits of their mobile number, but would have to change the prefix. Under the new system set to be unveiled in November, users can keep the old prefix regardless of the operator they are using. According to the head of regulatory affairs at Vodafone Ireland, Lawrence McAuley, Ireland is set to become the first country in the world to allow such a development.
"Testing for the system begins in July, and judging from progress in other countries, SMS messaging could be one of the initial problems we need to overcome. We can't switch on until we can guarantee the system will run smoothly. Failure to do so could have significant implications in terms of billing," McAuley told ElectricNews.Net.
"In other European countries you have to change the entire mobile number and not just the prefix if you want to switch to a new network provider," he added. "There is a European directive to have number portability available in all countries by April next year, and Ireland could be in the lead."
However, McAuley admitted some reservations towards the project, hinting that the industry had number portability forced on it by the regulatory authorities. "We are concerned about the cost; it is costing the industry tens of millions to put in place. The ODTR did a cost-benefit analysis and over-estimated the benefits and underestimated the costs. A lot of it was based on a hypothetical situation where no money was used," he said.
McAuley, who also heads up the portability project, described the likely effect number portability might have on churn rates. "People will move to other operators for price and quality and the general trend is that the larger operators benefit whilst smaller operators lose out."
Andrew Kelly, head of corporate affairs at Meteor warned that even though Ireland's three operators were on target so far, there was a very possible danger that introduction of number portability might be delayed by the testing process and the introduction of services could slip into Q1, 2003.
A spokesperson for Digifone, soon to become O2, said, "O2 welcomes the move and does not view it as a threat to churn and customer capture. It's positive for the industry at large and we have teams working hard to facilitate the move for November."
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