What Is a Carrying Account?
A portable number means that when moving or relocating to work, users can change their phone number without taking into account whether the new and old addresses belong to the same telephone office or the same operating company.
Portable number
Right!
- Portable numbers refer to the fact that users can not change their phone number when they move or relocate to work.
- In 1998, Hong Kong Telecom provided users with a "portable number" service. This has important practical significance for keeping users' external contacts unaffected, especially for maintaining the operational activities of users of the bureau. Relocating without changing the phone number requires some technical treatment, and also requires a certain amount of cost investment. Opening such a business is actually transferring the user's "trouble" to a new operating company and let them solve it.
- Portable numbers are derived from Number Portability (NP), which is a hot topic in recent years. It mainly refers to the ability of enterprises, groups, commercial institutions or individuals to relocate, change operators, or change service types. Using the original number avoids the trouble of changing the phone number.
- (1) Portable when the geographic location changes: It means that the user's phone number does not change after the geographic location of the user changes, which is more common in many countries; (2) Portable that the service changes: refers to the user changing from a service When changing to another service, the user's number does not change, for example, when changing from a fixed network to a mobile network, the number does not change, or from an analog phone to ISDN, etc .; With the existence of several operators, the user does not change the phone number after changing the operator, which is the most important and most concerned about the portability of the phone number.
- The Hong Kong region of China began to carry phone number portability services in 1995. As of May 2004, a total of 23 countries and regions around the world have realized phone number portability services. : Relevant information and documents of telecommunication regulatory agencies in various countries or regions, and Europeanommission (2002), INTUG (2003)). These countries and regions are mainly distributed in Europe, where the telecommunications market is relatively mature, and other countries and regions with developed telecommunications industries: 18 are located in Europe, 3 are in Asia, and the United States in North America and Australia in Oceania. After implementing this service, a considerable number of users in these countries and regions have used this service. Within one year of the implementation of this service, approximately 1.6 million mobile subscribers in the United Kingdom changed operators while retaining the original number, while Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark corresponded to 530,000, 250,000, and 214,000. In the six months after implementation, SK in Asia and South Korea lost 1.45 million mobile subscribers.
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- The implementation of the portable number not only strengthens the orderly competition in the telecommunications industry, but also improves the rights and interests of users and brings great social benefits. For example, according to the calculation of UK 0FTEL in 1998, the net social benefit of mobile number portability is 98 million pounds. According to the Hong Kong 0FTA's 1998 calculation, after the implementation of mobile number portability, the net social benefit brought by the overall reduction in service costs was 769 to 1.396 million Hong Kong dollars. However, the measured growth of mobile users is much lower than the actual growth. The actual net social benefit will be much higher than the calculated value.
- In theory, phone number resources are endless, not scarce. But in a limited rational human society, because humans have limited ability to process and remember information, some numbers are more valuable than others. Bounded rationality here does not mean that humans are irrational in behavior, but that humans must pay a considerable cost when collecting, processing, and storing information, that is, there must be a certain price. Compared with phone numbers, some numbers are easier to remember than others, such as 114, 112 and other numbers, which means that these numbers are more valuable than others. Phone number resources are owned by the state in China, but currently this resource is monopolized by telecom operators. If the user changes carriers, the phone number must be changed. This brings great inconvenience to users, and is not conducive to operators to improve and optimize their services, reduce costs, and then optimize the market environment.
- At present, the technical implementation methods of number portability include: call forwarding, detour routing, the combination of call forwarding and intelligent stations, and intelligent network technologies. They have different characteristics and are applicable to different stages.
- Implementing a portable phone number is a complicated project after all, and there are still many problems to be solved. The implementation of telephone numbers can carry high costs, the main part of which is the cost of fixed assets invested in corresponding telecommunications equipment, while the variable costs are relatively small. According to relevant data, the implementation of the number portability policy will cost US operators $ 20 billion in 4 years. The initial cost of introducing the system was $ 1 billion, and the maintenance costs after the second year were $ 500 million per year. Although the technical problems are basically solved, there are still many practical problems to be solved. In the current situation where the number resource is monopolized by the operator, the number contains some key attributes of the corresponding operator, such as the distinction of the operator, the type of telephone service, and charging rules. After the implementation of number portability, although the user's number has not changed, the attributes of the number itself have changed a lot, and inter-network settlement is a key issue. In fact, the domestic telecommunications industry implements an asymmetric Internet settlement and tariff system. As new mobile licenses are issued and the one-way charging pressure increases, the uncertainty of the prospects for the reform of the Internet settlement and tariff system has also become a restrictive number. Carry important elements of implementation. At the same time, China's telecommunications competition environment is still relatively chaotic. Although the overall level of the telecommunications industry in China has greatly improved, due to the short history of the telecommunications industry and the long-term monopoly operation, although the competitive environment of the telecommunications market has been greatly improved, the problems of interconnection and interconnection have been basically solved. People's legal awareness is weak, and examples of vicious competition are still common in newspapers and magazines, such as the cable of a certain operator is cut. This shows that the telecommunications market in China is far from full and mature, the competition environment is not perfect, the operator's sense of competition is not strong, and the laws and regulations of the telecommunications industry are still to be improved. At present, China's regulatory policies have not been able to adapt to and resolve problems that may arise after number portability. The implementation of number portability services requires the intervention of regulators. Regulators need to adopt various measures to ensure their smooth implementation. This will have an impact on the original regulatory policies, especially the regulatory agencies' ability to control the price war. Regarding the formulation of standards, in 2001, the Ministry of Information Industry promulgated the "Code for Portable Business of Numbers", but the relevant equipment and technical standards have not been issued since then. In order to implement the number portability policy, a series of technical specifications and standards are needed to ensure protection and facilitate monitoring and implementation. To sum up the above discussion, although the time to implement the portability of telephone numbers as a whole is not yet mature, it is still necessary to be prepared early. (1) We have mastered relevant key technologies and can be implemented independently; (2) Have sufficient theoretical support, which is conducive to the development of the telecommunications industry and the realization of user rights; (3) The implementation of telephone numbers can be carried in the world Implemented in many countries, technically feasible, economically effective, benefiting the country and the people. Therefore, when the time is ripe, the timely introduction of telephone numbers to be portable will definitely accelerate the reform and development of China's telecommunications market and make the competition in the telecommunications market more orderly and effective. To this end, (1) to strengthen the environmental construction of the communications market and improve communications laws and regulations; (2) to strengthen regulations, regulatory policies should be enforced on the smallest market entry mechanism to facilitate the entry of emerging operators into the market, and to monitor policies It is also necessary to ensure the orderly, fair, and reasonable regulation of market players' corporate behaviors, strengthen interconnection and prevent artificial disconnection; (3) do a good job in Internet settlement and make reasonable adjustments to the tariff system; (4) ) Strive to improve technology, improve service quality and reduce costs.