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May 2, 2008

Cellphone number portability - at a price

I REFER to the article, 'New round of competition as mobile numbers go portable' (April 17). While I applaud the move by the Infocomm Development Authority to enforce full number portability service on our telcos to ensure competitive pricing, I was shocked and disappointed to realise this will affect many consumers who use the number retention service.

I was a SingTel subscriber for five years until high monthly bills caused me to switch to a more cost-efficient StarHub plan in 2005. I have since used the number retention service to port my SingTel calls to StarHub.

Recently, I received a letter from StarHub advising me about full number portability. Basically, I must choose one number and give up the other. However, I prefer to keep both numbers, as I have no idea who calls me on which number. To do so, I was told I must:

Sign and pay for a new plan with StarHub when now I have only one plan; and

Buy another cellphone as my current phone does not support dual SIM cards, or carry two cellphones.

I am bewildered and, frankly, rather peeved that telcos charge us more and burden us with carrying two SIM cards and two cellphones.

This means I have to pay more for a move I thought was meant to ensure competitive pricing.

If before full number portability was launched, we were able to port numbers across telcos for a one-time charge of $10, I am mystified as to why we can no longer do so.

Jolene Ong (Ms)