The U.K.'s Office of Communications (Ofcom) announced proposals to reduce the time it takes to port a number from one mobile carrier to another to only two hours. Current regulations require carriers to port the number within five days, which many consumer groups said was too long. The two hour rule will go into effect in two years, in the meantime, carriers will have to port numbers within two days. Ofcom has also called for fixed and wireless voice carriers to create a central database of numbers, which would allow consumers to port any phone number to any carrier whether wireless or wireline.
For more on Ofcom's proposal:
- see this article from Thomson Financial