More than 1.3 million Portuguese have already switched operators without changing numbers. Available since June 2001 for fixed numbers and from January 2002 for mobile numbers, the use of portability has been growing, rising in June to 1,311,143 ported numbers.
Most of the changes required relate to the fixed telephone service, with around 1.050 million requests to change operator, maintaining the number, reveals the Autoridade Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anacom).
The regulator for the telecommunications area adds that 259,284 numbers have already been ported on the mobile network, while 968 changes have been requested in non-geographic services.
It should be remembered that Portugal Telecom recently ended the agreements it had with other operators, in order to simplify the customer portability process.
The rules had been in force for three years and functioned as a complement to the set of rules defined by Anacom, but were rendered ineffective by alleged abuse of confidence by some operators.
According to PT, there are customers who have been circumvented, since their numbers have been changed by other operators without their authorization.
