du customers must wait a year to get same prefix

Dubai: Hopeful new du customers have a decision looming before them if they want to take their etisalat number with them - wait a year for the same number, or wait a few weeks and just change the prefix.

Registering the same number with du will be near instantaneous once the UAE's new telecom operator launches its number booking campaign. du is expected to announce the date of the registration period.

Under this programme, du switchers can keep their seven digit etisalat number. However, they must change the prefix from etisalat's 050 to du's assigned 055 prefix.

Taking the same number including the prefix will take a whole year, according to Osman Sultan, du CEO, who spoke at a roundtable discussion with members of etisalat and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority at yesterday's Gitex technology fair opening.

Sultan said complete number portability wouldn't be available until late 2007. A TRA working group is currently studying the issue.

"We were hoping to have this initially at the launch of our services," he said .

"Once we get the certainty that we will not get this at launch, we worked on a way for us to offer comfort to our customers in the important issues to them. They are telling us that the mobile numbers issue is important to them."

Barring the option to take the whole number to du, Sultan called the alternative offer "a great solution so far."