Press News

Budapest, July 24, 2003

On July 16, the Government approved the draft decree on number portability. The decree requires the service providers to provide the number portability service as of January 1, 2004 in cases where their subscriber changes service providers without changing his geographic location. Matáv welcomes the decree.

The development of number portability between service providers will cost Matáv at least 1.3 billion HUF. The software management of the three different switching centers has to be modified, the billing system and the internal software systems have to be upgraded and the customer service processes adjusted to the new situation. Making the so-called non-geographic numbers (e.g. 06 40, 06 80) portable will cost a further several hundred million forints expenditure. Matáv does not need to raise money for the operation; the company can finance the costs of the new investment from its annual Capex budget. No additional information is available at the moment on the details of the implementation of the project.