The Electronic and Postal Communications Authority (AKEP) approved at the beginning of this month a new regulation on how to implement number portability.
In support of the new law "On Electronic Communications", the regulation also stipulates that subscribers in the consumer category who are prepaid users of mobile services have the right to request a refund from the provider operator for their remaining or unused credits on the date of number porting.
The issuing operator must reimburse the customer for the remaining credits based on the customer's request with a prepayment (always deposited with the issuing operator). The user will be given a deadline to submit the refund request, which deadline must not be less than 14 calendar days from the date of number porting.
The providing operator must offer the possibility of submitting a refund request by consumers at points of sale, as well as through the use of online electronic means (e.g. email or requests filed online) that the operator can use in relations with subscribers and that enable the identification of the latter.
The issuing operator has the right to apply an administrative fee for processing the refund request, only when it is provided for in the existing contract with the consumer.
The fee applied in these cases must be proportionate and in the right ratio to the operator's actual costs of providing the refund. It must be fixed and independent of the amount refunded, but in any case not higher than 500 lek (including VAT).
The operator must reimburse the consumer by cash payment at a point of sale or by bank transfer if this is requested by the consumer himself.
The providing operator must reimburse the consumer within a reasonable period, but no later than 30 calendar days from the date of receipt of the refund request.
The new Law “On Electronic Communications” also provides for the right of the user to compensation in case of delays or abuses in the number porting process. According to the new law, providers of electronic communications services must provide in the service contract any fees related to the switching and compensation and reimbursement arrangements for the delay or abuse of the switching, as well as information regarding the relevant procedures.
The regulation further specifies that delays or abuses committed by the operator (whether the provider or the recipient) in the number porting process will be considered the performance of the number porting process by the recipient operator without a request from the subscriber, rejection or conditional acceptance of the number porting request by the provider operator in violation of the provisions of the regulation, exceeding the deadlines by the provider operator in responding to the porting request or exceeding the deadlines by the recipient operator for submitting the request to the relevant portability system.
However, the regulation does not contain concrete provisions regarding the value of compensation that the user may receive in these cases or the method of its calculation.
Number porting for subscribers of public mobile telephone networks and services has begun
in 2011, while for subscribers of fixed public telephone networks and services it began in
2012. By the end of 2024, a total of about 1.3 million numbers had been ported.
mobile phones and about 20 thousand landline numbers.
However, this process has been continuously problematic, despite AKEP's occasional interventions and changes in the relevant regulation.
According to data from AKEP, mobile number portability reached its lowest historical level during 2024, when only 19,500 mobile numbers were ported, 50% less compared to the previous year.
AKEP data also showed that the rejection rate of subscribers' requests for number portability was quite high. For 2024, about 50% of these requests were rejected.
The rejection rate of applications has decreased from the level of almost 70% a year ago, but, despite this, the process continues to have problems.
According to AKEP, the issues reported in subscriber complaints are related to rejections of number porting requests by the transferring operator, due to the mismatch of the prepaid user ID in the transferring operator's systems with the ID in the porting request sent by the beneficiary operator, as well as the contractual obligations of the postpaid subscriber (contract) to the transferring operator.
The new Law "On Electronic Communications" provides for a fine of up to 2% of the annual revenue (but not more than 50 million lek) of the electronic communications operator, if it does not fulfill the legal obligations imposed on number portability. /Monitor.al/
