THE Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) will start vetting companies aiming to offer back office number portability services in December.

This is the latest development in the Government’s delayed plan to allow customers to keep existing numbers when switching mobile or fixed line networks.

The regulator aims to issue a single licence to an operator of a Number Portability Central Reference Database and associated Automated Order Handling Process, by next June.

Bids will be evaluated on technical ability and pricing. The results of the bid process will be announced in January.

Disgruntled or curious customers still remain with providers in order to keep an existing telephone number known to business and personal contacts. The OUR indicates that number portability will remove this concern and thereby increase the industry competition.

Indicative costs for number portability services, however, has not yet been determined and the OUR did not disclose any price guidelines in its latest documentation.

“The price proposals shall be opened for only those applicants who qualify in the technical evaluation,” said an OUR request for bidders. “The selection of the winning applicant shall be based on the lowest quoted overall fees.

“If more than one applicant provides the lowest such quoted rate, the OUR will seek the best and final offers from these applicants.”

In June, Government stated that it would delay the introduction of number portability by a further 12 months which would allow telecom provider LIME to prepare its older fixed line legacy systems for the service.

Other providers, Digicel and FLOW, are in favour of the move, provided it involves full mobility of numbers for both mobile and fixed lines.

Government initially expected the service to begin December 2012, then revised it to the end of 2013 before putting it off until May 2014.

Part of the complexity involves the various networks, platforms, switches and billing software from which providers deliver service.

LIME uses GSM and 3G broadband wireless network standards and technologies for its mobile and IP and circuits for its fixed line.

Digicel, which also uses GSM technology, has deployed WiMAX technologies to provide 4G broadband wireless access.

Flow uses the hybrid fibre/coax DOCSYS standards which support its fixed line and cableTV operations.

“This licence will grant to the successful applicant the required permission, as the Number Portability Administrator, to manage and coordinate activities related to number portability in accordance with the published industry code of practice and operational guidelines for the number portability process, to facilitate the provision of number portability service by public telecommunications carriers in Jamaica,” stated the OUR’s outline for applications.