Mobile number portability (MNP) services are expected to be made available to the public in July this year, according to the head of Guyanese multi-sector watchdog the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Demerara Waves cites the PUC’s Chairperson Dela Britton as saying in a recent webinar on the nation’s telecoms sector that the regulator is awaiting the completion of the testing processes and that the MNP is expected to go live in July. The official went on to note that MNP, which enables customers to keep their mobile number when they switch providers, promotes competition and ‘generally forces players … to improve their service offerings’. The PUC set the ball rolling to introduce MNP back in July 2021 and in December 2022 the government issued a number portability and data processing licence to PortingXS.
As noted by TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Guyana’s mobile market has been a duopoly of US-backed firm Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) and Digicel Guyana since 2004, as efforts to modernise the sector’s regulatory structure and introduce more competition were mired in disputes for nearly a decade, until late 2020. Two more providers are expected to enter the mobile sector in the near future, however. Well-established ISP ENet – operating as E-Networks until December 2022 – is branching out into the mobile space via the deployment of VoLTE technology on its LTE network. The company launched what it described as pre-commercial trials of the platform earlier this month, when it began signing up customers to the service. Meanwhile, Guyanese-owned Green Gibraltar was issued a mobile licence in early 2022 and began its 5G network in December that year.
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2023/05/18/guyanese-mnp-to-go-live-in-july-2023/