Lifetime Cellphone Number Act : How Can It Benefit Filipino Mobile Consumers?

Have you ever experienced the hassle of transferring to another mobile network and getting an altogether new number to replace your old one?

It involves having to send your new number to your work or business contacts, friends, family members, and loved ones through SMS or Messenger -- and hoping that they'd actually bother to edit your profile in their smartphones' contacts list.

(In some cases, changing one's mobile number can even lead to lost business opportunities or even to inability to stay in touch with people who are important to us.)

It's an inconvenience that many of us have already grown to accept as an inevitability -- or is it?


Authored by Senator Win Gatchalian, the Lifetime Cellphone Number Act aims to facilitate convenient transfer of mobile subscribers from one service provider to another while retaining usage of their existing prepaid or postpaid cellphone numbers -- free of charge.

This seamless movement of subscribers among telco players should make it easier for consumers to get improved services with better deals from the network they prefer without having to go through the trouble of changing numbers.

Road to Lifetime Cellphone Number Law

On Monday - February 19, 2018, on Third Reading, the Senate of the Philippines formally approved this Act - also known as Senate Bill No. 1636 - with a unanimous 20 affirmative votes.

The bill, which mandates telecommunications networks to provide mobile number portability to subscribers within 24 hours of approved transfer, will then be forwarded to Malacanang and once President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signs it, it will be implemented as a law.

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