"Port that number in a day! Or else", says Europe's Telecoms Commissioner

In the video, Ms. Reding calls on both the European Parliament and the Council of EU Telecoms Ministers "to be ambitious" over the next few weeks as lengthy (some might say interminable), negotiations over a new regulatory regime to bolster competition and boost consumer rights in the EU telecoms environment finally reach their conclusion.

Viviane Reding is popular with Europe's consumers because she has constantly done battle with the continent's operator's in usually successful efforts to get them to cut tariffs, reduce roaming fees and generally behave in a more competitive way. As a result, she is generally not the favourite pin-up of Europe's telecoms industry - not that that seems to worry her in the slightest.

And now she's turning her attention once more to number portability. We haven't heard much about this subject of late but its back with a vengeance today with Ms. Reding agitating for all numbers to be ported within 24 hours of operators receiving such a request from a subscriber.

Since 2003, subscribers in each and every one of the EU's 27 member States have been legally entitled to change their fixed and mobile service providers whilst retaining the right to keep their original number/s.

Since then, 24 milion fixed line numbers and 60.2 million mobile numbers have been ported. However, number portability and the hurdles that some operators place in the way of easing the exercise for consumers is still, and far too often, a lengthy, time-consuming, elaborate and unnecessarily bureaucratic process that can take weeks to be completed. Indeed, even now the average time it takes for a number to be ported between one European operator and another is eight and a half working days for mobile and seven and a half working days for fixed lines. For the consumer, the reality is it takes at least a week and a half on average to get the number from one operator to another.

Viviane Reding says the languid attitude of far too many telcos is having a major impact "on competition and consumer choice".