El Salvador: No One Responsible for Number Portability

The Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications and the Legislature are blaming each other for the project grinding to a standstill.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Elmundo.com.sv reports that "After two years and an equal number of extensions granted by the legislature to the Superintendency of Electricity and Telecommunications (Siget) to implement number portability, the project is still on hold, despite having been a law of the Republic for more than a year. Although the head of the Siget, Luis Mendez, said that for now "everything is in the hands of the Legislature," that organ of state broke ranks from the remarks made by the official.

"I have already given over what I had to give them: I gave them the regulation of operations and the feasibility study, you go to the Assembly and ask them," Mendez said yesterday, in response to questions about when portability might be implemented.

The Gordian knot in this issue is the financing of the system, whose cost is estimated at $40 million, and it still has not been decided who will be charged, whether it will be the user or the operating companies.

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