Liquid Intelligent Technologies has welcomed the landmark decision by communications regulator Icasa concerning the porting of non-geographic numbers.

Icasa has proclaimed that the 2018 number portability regulations will come into force on 7 March 2022. They will allow businesses, call centres and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to port their numbers to a new service provider without having to change those numbers.

This will pave the way for a more innovative and competitive landscape as the regulations will end the historical dispensation that disallowed non-geographic (087, 0800 and 086) number porting between network operators.

The move resolves a significant issue that businesses in South Africa have had for some time. While individual consumers have been able to port their numbers between telecommunications service providers since 2006, businesses, SOEs and call centres have been locked into their original service provider due to the inability to port non-geographic numbers.

Liquid welcomes this announcement and is excited by the opportunities it opens, especially regarding cloud migration, business agility and the ability to upgrade operations without losing a key part of an enterprise’s identity.

Icasa’s decision has removed a barrier to any business that wishes to take advantage of this offering. The proclaimed regulations will inspire innovation and promote competition in South Africa’s telecoms market.

For example, Liquid’s OneVoice for Operator Connect, already available in Kenya, Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa, offers the latest step in digital transformation and voice infrastructure by combining traditional telephone calling within Microsoft’s Teams ecosystem. With Icasa’s announcement, OneVoice will even further provide a scalable communications solution for businesses of any size.

For more information, please visit: www.liquid.tech or e-mail [email protected].