Liquid Intelligent Technologies welcomes the landmark decision made by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) concerning the porting of non-geographic numbers.
ICASA has proclaimed the 2018 number Portability Regulations, – which will come into force on the 7th of March 2022, that will allow businesses, call centres and State-Owned Enterprises (SoE) to port their number to a new service provider without changing their number. Paving the way for a more innovative and competitive landscape, the regulations will end the historical dispensation that disallowed non-geographic (087, 0800 and 086) number porting between network operators.
The move resolves a significant issue that businesses in South Africa have had for some time. While individual consumers have been able to port their numbers between telecoms service providers since 2006, businesses, SoE’s and call centres have been locked into their original service provider due to the inability to port non-geographic numbers.
Liquid welcomes this announcement and is excited by the opportunities it opens – especially regarding cloud migration, business agility and the ability to upgrade operations without losing a key part of an enterprise’s identity.
ICASA’s decision has removed a barrier to any business that wishes to take advantage of this offering. The proclaimed regulations will set a new precedent to inspire innovation and promote competition in South Africa’s telco market.
For example, Liquid’s OneVoice for Operator Connect, already available in Kenya, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, offers the latest step in digital transformation and voice infrastructure by combining traditional telephone calling within Microsoft Teams’ ecosystem. With ICASA’s announcement to implement non-geo porting rules, OneVoice will even further provide a scalable communications solution for businesses of any size.
