Number Portability environment is constantly changing

18. 4. 2019

Introducing of Number Portability (NP) within one jurisdiction could be driven by different drivers and obligations, but two of them usually have its significance in decision making. We should introduce NP because we must or because we want it.

First one is driven in most cases by some external drivers as legal obligations of specific country or part of arrangements in case of international industry or economy support. The second one is much more mature and it is driven by recognition to increase competitiveness of the telecommunication industry.

In both cases regulation and guidance is executed by National regulatory Agency (NRA) or Ministry itself meaning, a certain level of politics included. And when it comes to politics, the stakeholders of the process, in general operators of telecommunication services, are not being observed as equal, as they do not impose the same level of influence on political decision makers. And politics and influences are fluid in time.

On the other hand, number portability is completely new process within telco industry introducing centralised clearing house and reference data base concept, which means new entity on the market. Operators might have and they do have different strategies in early stages of number portability implementation, from “delay and destruct” strategy all the way to “full support” strategy. In next stages strategies diverts based on level of complexity of new process implementation within each of operator and future focus on business strategies using number portability as gaining or losing new subscribers.

Some operators execute a lot of efforts prior to new process launch hiring external consultants to achieve optimal internal process flow, possible, where others wait for launch and expect to change their processes on the way during learning best options for them.

So that is real life. Logical. But the requirements for selecting new entity on the market, that is Number Portability Clearing House and Number Portability Reference Data Base with all industry used processes, interfaces and rules are met some time prior of all mentioned strategies, influences, interests, process adoptions, operators learning curves and so on. You name it.

As there is a pressure from the stakeholders to change some of defined requirements in the process of introduction of number portability in the market, what to do? One is sure. To successfully launch such complex project, the requests for changes must be handled with diligence if they should be handled at all. Some argue, requirements are fixed until launch, afterwards let’s talk.

This is why regulators should be careful how to identify real requirements for project introduction knowing that modifications and new process introduction will and should took place in the future, as whole industry and its stakeholders are changing on a daily basis.

Teletech Solutions: Netprem REM

5. 4. 2019

In the era of digitalization of all possible services a delivery of registered mail is one of the rare services that has still been dominated by the »old fashion« service – registered delivery of mail by the regular »physical« post. Due to the expand of different e-Services (e-Commerce, e-Trade, e-Government, e-Courts, e-Payment, etc.) in the past years, the need for trustable, reliable, faster and more efficient electronic equivalent for Registered E-mail delivery has increased significantly.

The Registered Email service (REM) combines the best of the two worlds – availability, speed and simplicity of the regular email service and trust, reliability and proof of deliver of the regular – »physical« registered mail. The REM service also provides much faster feedback when particular message or document has been delivered and even opened by the recipient. Sender and  recipient can also send or accept REM messages anywhere, anytime, on any device, so there are many very undisputed benefits compared to the »regular« registered port and emails.

The grounds for registered e-delivery have been set in 2008 by the two standards – ETSI TS 102 640 set by European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) and the UPU-S52 standard published by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). Both standards define how REM service should provide an electronic delivery of messages and documents and how different certificates of delivery are structured and provided. The standards have already been widely accepted by a number of national and private owned post offices across the World and became a defacto standards for registered e-delivery.

The REM service is most commonly used to send important documents where proof of delivery needs to be preserved for number of years. From this reason the REM service is most commonly integrated with e-archive service which ensures the stored certificates of delivery are stored on safe place and remain valid for required period of time.

NetPrem REM is Teletech’s solution for registered e-mail delivery. The solution is fully compliant with ETSI and UPU standards. NetPrem REM enables creation, editing and delivery of registered mails by using a trusted and secure REM web portal or by using other well known email IMAP clients like Outlook, Mozilla, etc. In addition to REM delivery it provides full support for e-business exchange (e-invoices, delivery notes, receipts, etc.) and it also integrates with NetPrem E-Archive for electronic archiving of REM messages, documents and delivery certificates. NetPrem E-Archive is fully compatible with RFC4810 – LTA (Long Term Archiving) and ETSI TS 101 903 V1.4.2 (2010-12) – standard of electronic signature. All documents in NetPrem eArchive are timestamped and electronically signed. Read more about the NetPrem REM and NetPrem eArchive.