On 17 February 2017, URCA issued its Final Determination (ECS 01/2017), which required service providers, BTC and Aliv, to ensure readiness for the launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) by 14 April 2017. At the time, it was anticipated and promised that MNP would be available on all islands where mobile services are available from more than one licensee from 25 April 2017.

URCA is satisfied that all required systems have been installed and implemented, however, final testing of the live process has resulted in the need for a short postponement of the MNP. Over the weekend, the Bahamas Telecommunications Company Limited and BeAliv Limited migrated their automated porting functions to the live production environments and worked closely to progress their final testing. It was at that time that the live testing raised some technical concerns and following consultation with URCA, it has been decided that it would be prudent to complete additional testing to confirm that the new MNP service is stable.

URCA accepts and concurs that a stable production environment is critical for the successful launch of the MNP service to all consumers in The Bahamas and has agreed with the providers to extend the launch of the MNP service by two days to Thursday 27 April 2017.

Number Portability (NP) enables persons to keep their telephone number(s) when switching providers, and while The Bahamas has benefitted from NP in respect of fixed telephone numbers since December 2013, NP for mobile telephone numbers is being implemented following the introduction of cellular mobile competition.

The launch of MNP requires both operators to implement various changes to their networks and business processes and requires extensive coordination by URCA. URCA apologies for any inconvenience this brief delay may have caused users of mobile services in The Bahamas.

For further information on MNP visit URCA’s website at www.urcabahamas.bs or contact URCA at info@urcabahamas.bs