Number portability allows clients of fixed and mobile telephony services to change provider while keeping their number. All the countries covered allow the porting of mobile numbers.

Brazil, Mexico, Peru and the United States also allow fixed number portability. In Argentina, fixed number portability is mandated but not yet implemented. Chile and Canada implemented complete portability, allowing a subscriber to port between fixed and mobile numbers. However, in Canada, porting can only take place within the same service area.

Most countries in the Americas use a centralised database system, using an independent administrator to manage the database. 

In general, the portability process takes between a few hours and three days. Among the surveyed countries, Paraguay has the longest mobile portability process (8 working days) and Argentina will have, when implemented, the longest fixed portability process (5 working days). However, comparing the porting duration between countries is made more complex because the rules differ on the starting date, either being when a user sends a porting request or when the centralised database receives the request. 

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