TALLINN - Since Estonia introduced portability of mobile telephone numbers at the beginning of the year, some 4,550 customers have used the opportunity to switch operators.
In addition, some 2,750 numbers were on a waiting list to transfer their numbers to a different provider as of Jan. 28, Ando Rehemaa, director general of the Communications Board, said. This brings the total number of people who have decided to use this modern feature at more than 7,300.
The Communications Board has estimated that it would have an average of 9,500 transfers per month 's a result that the department said was in line with expectations.
Neither operators nor the Communications Board have released data about the net movement of customers so far. In fact, database operator Abobase Systems, which published several early figures, was pressured by state agencies and operators to stop such hasty reports.
The last figure, dating from Jan. 7, suggested that market leader EMT had won the most new customers, while Tele2 was falling behind. EMT received more than 3,300 clients from competing networks, while about 2,000 more applications are mid-process.
EMT director general Valdo Kalm told the Baltic News Service that the year's beginning had been peaceful. "We did not forecast many fast or big movements, and this is how it has so far been," he said. "The mobile-phone market as a whole will continue its normal development."
