In order to make it easier for people to change their cell phone operator while keeping their mobile line number, the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) simplified the Number Portability process, for which he carried out an analysis of the main causes that prevented this process from being carried out quickly and efficiently and proceeded to make definitions in this matter, as he has just reported.
(Also read: The largest companies, the ones that sold the most and the ones that won or lost in 2022)
According to the CRC, one of the biggest causes of rejection of porting requests is when users are in arrears with the payments of their telephone lines (83 percent of the total rejections of the operators only in the first quarter of 2023), for which reason these grounds were modified.
Through Resolution CRC 7151 of 202, the entity eliminates the obligation to be up to date with payments in order to port. Nevertheless, “the elimination of said cause does not release the user from the responsibility of being up to date with their obligations therefore, the operator may use other collection mechanisms,” said the market authority
(You may also be interested in: Do the math: these are the tax obligations for the second semester of 2023)
The text of the message that the user will receive when carrying out the procedure with which the personal identification number (PIN) is sent was also modified, noting that the code corresponds to the change of operator of his mobile line, so that, in If you have not requested porting, contact your operator.
“To achieve the effectiveness of this measure, we call on users to be alert to the messages sent by their operator and to be able to act quickly in order to prevent criminals from stealing their line to commit financial crimes,” said Nicolás Silva. Cortés, Commissioner and Executive Director of the CRC.
Example of the PIN message
With this adjustment, what is sought is to close the doors to criminals so that they do not commit fraud with stolen lines.
Another of the changes advanced by the Commission to strengthen the identity verification mechanisms of the owner is the presentation of the NIP (code for the request for the procedure) in the case of requests made by legal persons, a requirement that only applied to persons natural.
For the portability of prepaid lines, the obligation to validate the identity of the user by the operator is included.Therefore, it is recommended that citizens register and keep their information updated, so that when requesting the change, it is not rejected.
“Undoubtedly, the implementation of these measures, contemplated in Resolution 7151 of 2023, will strengthen portability by applying new rules to protect the rights of users of mobile communication services in the country, simplifying the process of changing operators and preventing the exercise of bad practices in the process”, specified Silva Cortés.
The measures were adopted not only to facilitate the process for users of this telephony, but also because the CRC found that the number of successful portings has decreased from 87 to 48 percent between 2020 and 2023, reaching 1.92 million applications rejected between January and March of this year.
