MNP: Operators Record 9,613 Unsuccessful Ports in Two Months

The four GSM operators record 9,613 unsuccessful ports in the months of July and August this year, the highest since the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) scheme into the telecoms sector in April 2013, THISDAY investigation has revealed.

Within the first 48 hours of the launch of Mobile Number Portability in Nigeria in 2013, the industry recorded 4,000 ports across networks, with minimal records of failure rates in the porting process. This continued until July and August this year, when the industry recorded a total of 9, 613 failed ports, even though it also recorded a total of 42, 531 successful and completed ports within the same period, according to a recent released by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms industry regulator.

According to NCC, the total number of porting requests received from the recipient networks in the month of July, 2015, was 28,707, and there were a total of 22,886 successful completed ports in the same month, while the total number of failed ports in the month of July, 2015, was 5,740.

NCC further revealed that the total of porting requests received from the recipient network in the month of August, 2015, was 24, 499, and the total number of successful completed ports in the month of August 2015, was 19,645, while the total number of failed ports in the month of August, 2015, was 3,873, bringing the total number of failed ports in the months of July and August this year, to 9,613, which is said to be on the high side.

NCC said as at the time of the report, the figures for September 2015 were being compiled, with the belief that the failure rate of porting will not be as high as that of July and August, 2015.

In technical parlance, MNP is a process that allows subscribers to migrate from one network to another, in search of better service quality, while still retaining the original phone number, irrespective of the network the subscriber chooses to migrate to. This is one aspect of telecommunication service offerings that seeks to revolutionise telecoms activities across the globe and Nigeria only joined other countries on number porting in 2013, and subscribers had since been enjoying the scheme that offers them more flexibility.

Singapore was the first country to launch MNP in 1997, followed by UK and Netherlands in 1999, while Spain, Switzerland and Sweden launched between 2001 and 2002. US launched in 2003, South Africa in 2006 and Ghana in 2012, before Nigeria in 2013.

NCC, from the inception of MNP, made porting free of charge for subscribers, but insisted that subscribers could port their numbers once every 90 days.

Convinced that MNP has benefitted both subscribers and the operators, despite some hitches like failure rate in porting numbers, the Director of Public Affairs at NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo told THISDAY that MNP had brought about improved service quality and increased healthy competition among operators, in addition to the introduction of value added services by the operators to attract more subscribers to their various networks.