RECENT CALLS for action to address numbering confusion within the cellular phone industry have been rebuffed by some members of the telecommunications sector.
Digicel marketing manager, Harry Smith, told The Gleaner recently that the inability of cell phone callers to determine what charges to expect for numbers dialled, would soon be a thing of the past.
"As of September 1, our rates will be $7 per minute," Mr. Smith reminded, suggesting there would be no further need for concern. The drop in billing will land Digicel on equal footing with Cable and Wireless Jamaica's (CWJ) current call rates.
The issue arises out of growing difficulties in immediately differentiating between the cellular numbers assigned to phones on the two networks as both Digicel and its major competitor, CWJ, now share numbers in the same 8XX range.
As a result of this, and the wide gap between the two networks' current call charges, customers have often been unable to determine how much a call will cost.
Just over two weeks ago, Member of Parliament for West Rural St. Andrew, Andrew Gallimore, recommended that the Government follow the example of the United States and insist that service providers identify themselves when calls are being made to their network from the network of their competitors. He was speaking during his Sectoral Debate presentation in the House of Representatives on July 16.
"This sort of advice to a caller in Jamaica using a Digicel phone to call a CWJ cell phone could save a caller a significant amount of money," Mr. Gallimore had said.
The Jamaica Labour Party MP had earlier blasted the Government for not maintaining order in the assignment of numbers to the local telephone service providers. There was a failure to protect consumers from the subsequent confusion, he said.
Though not speaking directly on Mr. Gallimore's comments, Director General of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR), J. Paul Morgan, rejected this argument during the regulatory body's quarterly press conference at the PetroJam Building, New Kingston, last Friday.
During his presentation, Mr. Morgan explained that despite concerns about the sharing of number ranges, it would be impractical to provide this type of exclusive identification by numbering (known as service provider branding).
With Jamaica being part of the regional telecommunications numbering scheme, the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), the smallest number block that can be used to allow exclusive branding contains one million numbers.
