ANTEL has already had to invest more than US$1.1 million to put into operation the number portability approved in the Law of Urgent Consideration (LUC), which means that cell phone users can switch between operators keeping their number. .
This follows from the response to a request for information given by the undersecretary of Industry, Energy and Mining, Walter Verri, to the senator of the Broad Front, Enrique Rubio.
Portability came into force on January 12 of this year and, since then, the state telephone company has already lost 1,041 clients: 319 went to Movistar and 722 to Claro.
ANTEL reported that “the adaptation of its own computer systems to overcome the operation of the telecommunications system for the inclusion of number portability had a cost of US$89,492”.
Another cost was a system called Gateway (‘door’ in English), a system or equipment whose basic function is to establish communication between multiple environments, which involved an investment of US$208,000; additionally, the administration of databases had a cost of US$312,036, according to the response signed by the president of ANTEL, Gabriel Gurméndez.
“This payment had to be made by the three operators equally, for the implementation of a centralized Database Administrator system. The tour of the ‘ACQ’ system (All Call Query necessary for the portability system) by which every call made from a mobile phone requires the centralized database to define the operator that will receive such call”, reads the document .
After its implementation, the change of operator has a cost for ANTEL of approximately US$25.61 plus VAT.
Another expense that ANTEL had to incur in order for the entire system to work on its side is the “adaptation of the mobile network systems, which amounted to US$ 512,464”.
“Regarding this investment, although it is partly necessary for portability, it modernizes the system, helps and updates Antel’s mobile service systems. Therefore, said amount is not entirely attributable to number portability. The investments were those necessary for the implementation of the legal mandate to implement portability, regardless of the number of ported”, is limited in the response.
advertising is separate
Finally, it is clarified that between December 31, 2021 and March 31, 2022, there was a net increase of 24,703 contractual and prepaid mobile services.
All of the detailed costs do not include the advertising campaign that ANTEL was forced to carry out to compete for portability, which was contracted to the Punto Publicidad agency: the budget allocated for the year 2022 is $374 million, about US$9 million approximately.
