Subtel: Number portability study ready in weeks

Chilean telecoms regulator Subtel expects to complete a feasibility and cost study in the next few weeks to help decide about implementation of number portability, local newspaper Diario Financiero quoted Subtel head Pablo Bello as saying. Bello held a meeting on January 8 to inform deputies Gonzalo Arenas and Gonzalo Uriarte about the progress of the study. Arenas and Uriarte sponsored the bill that calls for implementation of number portability in Chile. Despite Bello's progress report Arenas, from the opposition party UDI, said the government is not being transparent and is not considering the users' opinion in the matter. He said that Subtel has inexplicably maintained in secrecy a report it sent to the International Telecommunication Union ITU in September 2006 about its efforts to implement number portability in Chile. Subtel's preliminary figures estimate the cost of number portability would be around US$34mn and the institution plans to propose regulation under which only those clients using number portability pay for the service.