Country Moves Closer to Mobile Number Portability

A new regime in mobile telecommunications in Nigeria is set to unfold in the near future as the Nigerian Communications Commission is expected to announce the nation's mobile phone number portability service provider.

Telcordia is the chief architect of the telecommunications system in the US, and has pioneered many of the telecommunications services used today, including caller ID, call waiting, mobile number portability and toll-free telephone number service.

Recent interview with Research Times in Abuja

In a recent interview with Research Times in Abuja, NCC Executive Vice Chairman, Dr Eugene Juwah, revealed that the telecoms regulator had selected a company from those who bid for the service to enable mobile phone users change service providers while after all keeping their in a class by itself numbers.

The ability of mobile phone users to port their phone numbers from one operator to the other, will mark a major milestones in the industry and will engender competition in Nigeria's telecoms sector of over 90 million active subscribers. It was as well enable new entrants and smaller operators gain market share.

The service will as well be available to fixed line users afterwards the successful execution of the project for mobile phone users.

The eventual selection

Before the eventual selection, NCC held consultations with telecoms operators and stakeholders and as well evaluated proposals and solutions proffered by the bidders for mobile number porting in which phone users will keep their mobile numbers when they change service providers.

Under the plan, the number porting service is expected to commence afterwards the completion of the ongoing nationwide mobile phone registration that ends September 28.

The number porting service will be available to only registered phone users as NCC has directed network operators to disconnect unregistered lines at the end of the mobile phone registration exercise.

The registration is expected to be completed

"The registration is expected to be completed by September 28, 2011. Afterwards this period, all unregistered SIM cards will be disconnected from the networks," the NCC had before announced.

Juwah said pursuant to this agreement the terms of the selection deal, network operators, in other words than mobile phone users, would pay for number porting by their subscribers, adding that finer details of the licence are currently being worked out among all stakeholders.

Asked if the operators will not transfer the cost to their subscribers, he said: "So then, not directly. For the moment, they cannot say because you transferred your phone number, this is the cost. As far as we are concerned, the cost of transfer of porting to a subscriber is free. It is zero."

NCC had previously said SIM registration would precede number portability not only to generate a database of phone users nevertheless also to assist security agencies in resolving crimes and by extension to enhance the security of the state; facilitate the collation of data by NCC about phone usage in Nigeria and enable operators to have a predictable profile about the users on their networks; and effectively implement other value added services like number portability, among others.

Under the plan, NCC's non-mobile market expansion plan is to expand number portability to the other telecoms markets, including operators of fixed and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), among others, that will see the mobile number portability administrator offer and manage the service between fixed, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) operators, fixed to mobile and mobile to fixed, among others.