Barbadians to have number portability by June

(Barbados Nation) By June, Barbadians should be able to switch their phone service providers without having to change their number.
That’s the target date given by director of digital infrastructure in the Ministry of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology (MIIST), Clifford Bostic, on Monday when debate on the Estimates 2022-2023 continued in the House of Assembly.
Responding to a question from Member of Parliament for St James Kerrie Symmonds about where the ministry was in attaining number portability among telecoms providers since it was mooted some time ago, he agreed it was a “vexing issue”, and added that Government “was at it since 2017 to be exact” when the consolidation of several companies took place. It was a condition of that agreement.
“We started the project then and we had two delays. Each of the service providers had some issues that had to be resolved, so we had to stop, but we have started the project back in October 2021 and we have completed a number of things we’re going to be using to make number portability for Barbadians realisable. We are delivering to the market fixed, or landline, portability as well as mobile portability,” Bostic said.