A decade of number portability

Starting 21 October 2008, when number portability has been launched, until mid-October 2018, a total of 5,131,415 numbers have been ported, of which 4,391,304 mobile telephony numbers and 740,111 fixed telephony numbers. Since the beginning of 2018 to mid-October, 682,507 telephone numbers, i.e. 644,761 mobile telephony numbers and 37,746 fixed telephony numbers.

List of providers that acquired the most numbers on their network – mobile telephony  

10 years after the launch of this service, RCS&RDS is the provider with the most mobile telephony numbers acquired through porting (1,583,038), followed by Orange (1,006,134), Vodafone (1,003,996), Telekom Romania Mobile Communications (604,484) and Telekom Romania Communications (192,787).

Between  January 1–October 15, 2018, RCS&RDS acquired 201,472 mobile telephony numbers, Orange 134,228 numbers, Vodafone 120,875 numbers, Telekom Romania Communications 110,722 numbers and Telekom Romania Mobile Communications 77,429 numbers.

List of providers that acquired the most numbers on their network – fixed telephony 

Since the launch of number portability until mid-October, 740,111 fixed telephony numbers were ported, most of which went to five providers: RCS&RDS (216,907), Vodafone (168,191), UPC (142,984), Orange (139,533), respectively Telekom Romania Communications (32,993).

In 2018, RCS&RDS was again the operator with the most numbers acquired through porting (17,458), followed by Telekom Romania Communications (6,135), Orange (5,720), UPC (3,300) and Vodafone (2,872).

Users’ complaints

In 2018, ANCOM has received 568 complaints from the users regarding the porting process. The main issues concerned failures of the porting process, such as the failure to send certain messages to the user databases, porting rejection and assignment of provisional numbers.

Many of the users that turned to ANCOM requested the porting process to be cancelled. ANCOM is not in the position to cancel a porting process, the parties involved in the porting process being the only entities that can undertake such action. A porting process may be cancelled by submitting a cancellation request to the provider on whose network the number was intended to be ported (acceptor provider) and the cancellation can be operated only by the holder of the service supply contract or by the respective legal representative. The cancellation request may be submitted no later than 24 hours before the initially established porting completion moment. Upon the user’s submission of the porting cancellation request, according to the legal provisions, the acceptor provider feeds this request into the centralised database, and the donor provider confirms the cancellation of the porting process.

User information

For information purposes, ANCOM has launched the website www.portabilitate.ro, where the users can find the network of any ported telephone number used in Romania, may it be ported or not. The website offers details on the steps to be taken in order to port a telephone number, answers to frequently asked questions in case of porting a number, as well as advice for preventing possible problems in the porting process. For making the best informed choice when switching service providers, users can access www.veritel.ro, the telephony and internet offer comparison tool managed by the ANCOM.