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NCC may drop proposed plan on second phase launch of number porting

By BusinessNews Staff on April 11, 2014

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), may have jettisoned its initial plan to launch the second phase of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), following recent industry development.

Based on the successful launch of the first phase of MNP scheme for GSM operators on April 22, 2013, NCC promised Nigerians that it would in no distant time, launch the second phase of MNP for Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators. But it appears that NCC may have dropped the idea, following the slow acceptance of the scheme by telecoms subscribers that have been reluctant to port their numbers, since Mobile Number Portability was introduced about a year ago.

Another reason could also be as a result of the difficulties that CDMA operators are facing, a situation that has left Visafone as the only surviving CDMA operator in the country.

NCC has been silent over the second phase launch of Mobile Number Portability, even though it had earlier announced its intention to launch it.
Telecoms lawyer, Barrister Jiti Ogunye, told THISDAY that NCC may have had good intention to launch the second phase of the MNP scheme, but that such plan had long been overtaken by industry development, and as such, made the planned launch unnecessary.

“We have successfully launched the first phase of Mobile Number Portability. The second phase will be launched for the Fixed Wireless Network operators like Visafone, Capcom in due course,” Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah told Nigerians at the launch of the first phase in Lagos.

Singapore was the first country to launch MNP in 1997, followed by UK and Netherlands in 1999, while Spain, Switzerland and Sweden launched MNP between 2001 and 2002. US launched in 2003, South Africa in 2006 and Ghana in 2012. Nigeria became the latest country to joined the league in 2013. But since its launch, subscribers have been reluctant to port their numbers, while only a handful have tried doing so.
However, current statistics from the NCC, shows that MTN experienced 3,695 outgoing ports in February 2014, being the highest among all mobile operators in the country.

This was followed Airtel with 1,338 outgoing ports, while Globacom had 1,240, and Etisalat had 807. In turn, Airtel and Etisalat had the highest incoming ports among the operators.

Although NCC is yet to give the total number of subscribers that have ported so far, the statistics released in February this year, is an indication that telecoms subscribers across networks are not really keen at porting their numbers. The statistics of those that have ported is not encouraging, a situation that may have made NCC to be silent over the planned second phase launch.

Giving reasons why subscribers are not enthusiastic about porting their numbers, a subscriber to Etisalat, Mr. Michael Opara told THISDAY that the strings attached to MNP by the NCC, to a large extent, discouraged people from porting.

In the first instance, subscribers are not allowed to port twice within three months, even though porting is free of charge. The rule is that subscribers port once in 90 days, which means that any subscriber who experiences poor service quality on the new network, shortly after porting, will have to endure the challenges of the network and complete the 90 days period before porting out.
Again the subscriber will loose all existing data on the old SIM card, as well as existing airtime on the old SIM card, since the subscriber is moving to another network. The subscriber is expected to use up every airtime loaded into the old SIM card before porting, or loose every airtime, immediately porting is completed. These are some of the attached conditions, which I think, is discouraging subscribers from porting, Opara said.

[This Day]

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