27 July 2011
JEDDAH: Officials from three mobile network companies in the Kingdom -- Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Zain Saudi -- have signed an agreement to enable their customers to switch their telephone numbers from one company to another.
JEDDAH: Officials from three mobile network companies in the Kingdom -- Saudi Telecom Company (STC), Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Zain Saudi -- have signed an agreement to enable their customers to switch their telephone numbers from one company to another.
Governor of Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) Abdullah Al-Darrab attended the signing of the agreement at the CITC headquarters.
Stipulations incorporated in the agreement to enable the simplification of the number transfer, a process known as porting, include that a disconnection of the transferred number should be temporary.
No application for transfer should be rejected except on valid reasons such as the nonpayment of the required fee. A number cannot be ported within two months after it is issued.
This move makes Saudi Arabia the only country in the Middle East, North Africa and other Muslim countries where porting is available.
© Arab News 2011
