The issues that led Zon to complain about Portugal Telecom to the electronic communications regulator, Anacom, date back to 2008 and to ask for help in resolving a dispute with the incumbent. At issue are difficulties in the relationship between the two companies in the process of portability of telephone numbers, of customers who started using Zon’s fixed-line services, coming from Portugal Telecom and who wanted to keep the same telephone number.
The company led by Rodrigo Costa presented the regulator with several arguments to support the accusation that PT was using several strategies to delay the process of portability of fixed telephone numbers, of customers that the company had acquired under its new triple offer play (when it started to combine with the Internet and television, a fixed telephone service).
10 months after submitting the dispute resolution request, in October 2008, a final decision appears. The regulator supports Zon in one of the points in question, but does not recognize the legitimacy of the remaining charges.
Anacom supports Zon when it considers it illegitimate for PT to use the «error code 301» to refuse portability. This code was triggered, justifies the incumbent, whenever there was no valid termination of the telephone service contract, for the purposes of portability.
Zon claims that this element can only be used for informational purposes and does not serve to support a decision to reject the portability request, under the legislation in force, and Anacom proved it right.
The regulator also decided to analyze Zon’s accusations regarding PT’s refusal of electronic portability requests in a litigation, alleging the non-portability of some numbers. It will also assess the accusations of breach of confidentiality obligations attributed to PT.
Anacom did not consider Zon’s accusations that PT was unduly using other arguments to delay the portability process legitimate or proven, such as the lack of capacity to process all requests submitted in the desired time; incorrect address information or customer identification data, among others. Nor did it comply with Zon’s request to create a commission to monitor the portability process between the two companies.
