MANILA -- The Philippines' 3 telecommunications companies will form a joint venture company to implement a law that will allow consumers to keep their mobile phone number when switching payment plans or carriers, according to a stock exchange filing on Friday.

PLDT Inc, Globe Telecom and Dito Telecommunity tapped Florida-based Syniverse for the "clearing house" tasked to ensure the "smooth implementation" of phone number transfers, PLDT said in a disclosure.

Dito, a joint venture between businessman Dennis Uy's Udenna Corp and China Telecom, is establishing the so-called third telco to challenge the dominance of Globe and PLDT, parent of Smart Communications.

"We are taking measures to put in place a seamless and efficient process for our existing and would-be customers who would like to avail of this service in the future," said Alfredo Panlilio, Chief Revenue Officer of PLDT and Smart.

"Our utmost priority is to ensure that the experience of our customers is seamless and of utmost convenience should they decide to port their numbers," said Globe chief technology and information officer and chief strategy officer Gil Genio.

As long as a subscriber has no outstanding obligation to his or her current service provider, the subscription plan can be modified from postpaid to prepaid or vice versa without changing the number, based on the Mobile Number Portability Act.

The number can also be retained when transferring from one telco to another, according to the law that was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in February 2019.

The law also tasked telcos to equally share capital expenditures for its implementation.

Synverse, according to the PLDT disclosure, provides software and services that connect 7 billion devices globally and processes $35 billion in mobile transactions annually.