Up to 2.5 million users could be locked out of portability in a year in Italy. Iliad leads the fight against a new resolution impacting him.
Iliad will continue to side with subscribers and transparency. On December 23, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court rejected its appeal filed against parts of AGCOM resolution 86/21/CIR, the so-called “Sim Swap”. This is a new portability procedure against fraud that came into effect in November leading to various blockages and denial of portability. The leading recruiter on mobile since its launch, Iliad benefited from the change of operator more than its competitors, so it is now more impacted.
For more than a year, the operator has been reporting in all the competent offices and with all the tools at its disposal how and how this Resolution negatively impacts users and the market, without reason, since it is possible to prevent and fight effectively SIM card fraud without resorting to measures, such as those introduced, which effectively block portability.
In detail, the resolution establishes that only the person authorized to request the portability of the mobile number to a new operator or the replacement of the SIM (even in the event of theft or loss), is the owner of the SIM card. This means that the data of the holder of the number with the new operator must coincide with those of the previous one.
In addition, the SIM of the former operator associated with the number to be brought must be functional, otherwise it will be necessary to request a replacement from the former telephone operator, present the appropriate report to the competent authorities in the event of theft.
Another measure, the operator is required to identify the person requesting portability with a clear and legible photo, as well as an identity document and tax code, the old SIM and, in the event of theft or loss, relative report.
The operator to whom you are porting your number is obliged to send an SMS to the number subject to portability or to make a recorded call to check that the SIM is active and that the data entered is correct. All this to be sure that the request is real and not an attempt by third parties.
Benedetto Levi, CEO of iliad Italia, said: “We have always made transparency and freedom of choice a source of pride for our company. We find ourselves today in an incomprehensible situation: without calling into question the overall structure and the purposes of the Resolution, it would suffice to make small corrections to allow all users to change operator when and how they wish. , without having to go through complex procedures. “
“The discomfort is obvious – adds Levi – just look at the number of ports that crash every day. So far, no one, neither the Authorities nor the Institutions, has asked us to have access to the data. You just have to look at them and realize that hundreds of thousands of users are blocked, potentially 2.5 million in a year. We are talking about millions of people who would find themselves forced, despite themselves, to undergo hardship, seeing their freedom of choice effectively limited. This is without taking into account the impact on competitive dynamics and – last but not least – the increase in work for the many small and medium-sized entrepreneurs active in the telephone retail sector who find themselves obliged every day to explain to users that it is not their responsibility if portability fails, wasting time and resources,
“I urge the Authorities and Institutions – concludes Levi – to convene a working table as soon as possible, to verify if our assertions are true, to confirm or deny whether there have already been hundreds of thousands of portability failures, and to act accordingly, identify and implement as soon as possible the simple corrective measures likely to definitively resolve the situation”.
Iliad’s rant impacted by a resolution on portability in Italy