Spain begins lifting fixed and mobile portability restrictions

News General Spain 27 MEI 2020
Spain begins lifting fixed and mobile portability restrictions
The Spanish government has decided to gradually ease restrictions on mobile and fixed number portability procedures as part of new royal decree of urgent measures approved on 26 May, reports Europa Press. In a press conference following a meeting of the cabinet of ministers, the country’s finance minister Maria Jesus Montero confirmed that as soon as the royal decree is published, operators will be given 5 days to return the portability process to pre-state of emergency levels. However, for as long as the state of emergency lasts, they will still be banned from interrupting telecommunications services even if subscribers are unable to keep up with payments in view of the essential nature of the service.

The news comes after Spain’s communications regulator CNMC ordered operators to cut mobile number portability (MNP) requests to 25 percent of their previously assigned level and fixed portabilities to just 50 a day with a view to reducing risk for users and technical personnel alike during the Covid-19 pandemic. With regard to convergent packages, operators have only been permitted to carry out mobile or fixed line portabilities that do not require travel to a customer's home or to a customer services centre, except in cases of force majeure.

The report added that operators and consumer associations have been calling for the removal of these portability restrictions for several weeks in view of the accelerated easing of coronavirus restrictions and the fact Spain was the only country in Europe in which the ban on portabilities remained in force. In April, the total number of mobile lines changed came to around 130,000, some 77 percent less than the 560,000 migrations registered a year earlier, while fixed line changes plummeted 95 percent.


 

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