Mobile number portability is cumbersome and expensive - NCA

Accra, April 8, GNA - The National Communications Authority (NCA) says mobile number portability (MNP) is cumbersome and very costly so its implementation needs be done with great circumspection.

In a written response to a questionnaire administered by the GNA, Mr. Joshua Peprah, Director, Regulatory Administration of the NCA, says MNP is costly and cumbersome in respect of length of time to execute porting, frequency a customer could port and the allocation of costs associated with number porting versus the current cost of new starter packs (sim cards).

Currently sim cards cost between one and two Ghana cedis, depending on which network one subscribes to and the NCA says porting cost could be higher than that.

"We therefore want to approach MNP with circumspection," he said.

He said the NCA was considering introducing MNP when the dynamics of the telecom market necessitated the real need for it, adding that "the NCA believes that we are now almost at that point now".

Mr Peprah, however, noted that the implementation of MNP was

not as simple as the public always wanted it to seem, saying the benchmarks NCA had done on some countries which had implemented MNP indicated that the success rate did not match the huge amounts that were sunk into the project.

He said stakeholder consultations on the introduction of MNP would be held to deliberate on the modalities including the cost involved and how it could be funded prior to its introduction.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Communications, assured the Appointments Committee of Parliament of his commitment to the implementation of MNP and he repeated same during his maiden meeting with CEOs of telecom service operators as minister recently.

Meanwhile, according to Mr Peprah, the provisions of the NCA Act, Act 769, 2008, made it possible for the NCA to mandate service providers to implement MNP, adding, however, that none had been mandated to do so yet.

Mr Peprah said the NCA was still monitoring other countries which had implemented MNP to leverage on their experiences, rules of engagement and the appropriate method of implementation to suit the Ghanaian market.

Information on the practice of MNP in other jurisdictions indicated that porting time was between three minutes and two hours and the cost to the subscriber could be zero depending on the type of porting system, donor-led or recipient-led.

Donor-led porting is one initiated by the network which the

subscriber is leaving and the recipient-led porting is one initiated by

the network the subscriber in going to. He said the experience of other

jurisdictions showed that recipient-led porting was at no cost to

subscribers and it was the one widely practiced around the world. Speaking of the Ghanaian market, there are six multi-national

mobile telecom operators, MTN, Tigo, Kasapa, Zain, Vodafone and

Globacom, which is yet to be operational. According to the NCA, the five service providers which are

operational commanded a total of 11,962,224 subscribers as at

January 2009. The market leader, MTN has 6,592,243 subscribers, followed by

Tigo with 2,785,714 subscribers, Onetouch (Vodafone) with

1,733,711, followed by Zain with 463,824 and Kasapa with 386,732

subscribers. Meanwhile, network operators do not seem to agree with the NCA

about the cost and cumbersomeness of MNP. They noted that operators had spent money on more expensive

ventures such as 3.5G and the acquisition of additional network codes and that the implementation of MNP could not be more expensive than

those two.

The Managing Director of Kasapa, Mr. Robert Palitz told the GNA

that the implementation of MNP was long overdue, adding that the underlying legal requirements were completed in 2004. He said even though there was need for consultations on the legal, financial and technical issues regarding MNP, the public interest far

outweighed all other considerations in the implementation of MNP. Mr Palitz therefore proposed that the Minister should request concise reports and imminent deadlines for the implementation of the MNP from the NCA, saying that decisions in the public interest should be made quickly.

Mrs Carmen Bruce-Annan, Public Relations and Communications

Manager of Zain, said "Zain supports any initiatives that give

Ghanaians greater choice and we are on record saying that we support

MNP". Ms Mawuena Dumor, Corporate Services Executive of MTN, also

told the GNA that MTN needed to have a full appreciation of the

minister's comments about MNP and which direction he wanted to go

with its implementation before MTN could make any direct

pronouncements on it. Ms Anita Erskine, Director of Corporate Communications at Tigo, also told the GNA that Tigo was in the process of having consultation at the top level on the issue of MNP before they could make any pronouncements on it.

Glo Mobile is on record as saying that they supported MNP,

obviously because they were yet to start operations and MNP

promises to be a quick way for them to win some subscribers from

competition.