{"id":555084,"date":"2022-02-03T06:47:12","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T04:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=555084"},"modified":"2022-02-03T09:26:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-03T07:26:18","slug":"what-non-geographic-number-porting-means-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/industry-news\/555084\/what-non-geographic-number-porting-means-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"What non-geographic number porting means to you"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Nic Laschinger, CTO, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.euphoria.co.za\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=February+2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Euphoria Telecom<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Regulations to enable businesses to port non-geographic numbers were proclaimed by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently.<\/p>\n<p>This means businesses that are reliant on their 0800; 0860; 0861; 0862 and 087 phone numbers now have the choice of telecommunications service provider and are no longer tied into Telkom\u2019s services.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.euphoria.co.za\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=February+2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn more about Euphoria Telecom.<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The regulations have taken some 16 years to to be finalised and published, and will take effect from 7 March this year.<\/p>\n<p>It is number portability that enables a consumer or business to leave one telecommunications service provider and move to another, taking their number with them.<\/p>\n<p>For larger businesses in particular, changing numbers comes with significant costs and inconvenience.<\/p>\n<p>Changing all of a company\u2019s marketing collateral and business information &#8211; think directory listings, advertisements, business cards and so on &#8211; can become incredibly expensive.<\/p>\n<p>By porting numbers, businesses and consumers can avoid both the cost and the hassle of updating their numbers with everyone they engage with.<\/p>\n<p>Before the new regulations were proclaimed in December, only geographic numbers (011, 021 and so on) and mobile numbers (082, 083, etc) could be ported.<\/p>\n<p>This posed a significant problem for larger businesses with inbound call centres on non-geographic numbers.<\/p>\n<p>If Telkom had a problem, their call centres would go offline.<\/p>\n<p>The call centre industry is a major employer in South Africa, employing some 270,000 people, according to Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPESA) data.<\/p>\n<p>Business process outsourcing &#8211; which sees overseas companies outsource their call centres to South African businesses to perform business services &#8211; has been identified by President Cyril Ramaphosa as a critical growth sector to enable our economic recovery.<\/p>\n<p>This followed South Africa\u2019s sector being announced as the <a href=\"https:\/\/ryanadvisory.com\/south-africa-is-2021s-most-favored-offshore-cx-delivery-location\/?utm_source=BusinessTech&amp;utm_medium=Article&amp;utm_term=February+2022\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>most favoured global offshore destination<\/strong><\/a> for 2021.<\/p>\n<p>In enabling non-geographic number portability, ICASA has introduced competition to a segment of the local telecommunications market that desperately needs it.<\/p>\n<p>Call centre businesses will now be able to choose providers that meet their needs exactly, and businesses will be able to switch providers without incurring massive costs.<\/p>\n<p>The move will have a positive impact on competition in the sector as a whole, which will have a consequent positive economic impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Regulations to enable businesses to port non-geographic numbers were proclaimed by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":555088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10459],"tags":[11134],"class_list":["post-555084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-euphoria-telecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":555224,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555084\/revisions\/555224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}