Mobile users take advantage of mobile number portability

THE National Communications Authority (NCA) has reported that 370,107 mobile numbers migrated between networks, one year after the launch of the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) exercise.
The MNP balance sheet indicates that tiGO led the pack with about 68,000 ports into its network followed by Vodafone with 43,000.
Glo also gained 7,500, followed by Airtel with 6,800 gains.
MTN, however, lost 125,000 subscribers, while Expresso also lost 418.
The MNP, which was introduced on July 7, 2011 by the NCA, is a permanent system which allows Ghanaian mobile customers to move from one mobile service provider to another while retaining their entire mobile number.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the first year of MNP in Ghana, the Director General of NCA, Mr Paarock Van Percy,  described the exercise as highly successful due to the effective collaboration of the network operators and the authority.
The exercise, he said, was not a mass movement exercise but one that gave customers the choice to move to any other network of their choice if they so desired.
He said at the inception of MNP, customers were promised a maximum porting time of 24 hours, which has reduced significantly over the year.
“Very quickly, the average time to complete a porting request reduced to five hours, 21 minutes in the first month of MNP operation and subsequently to two hours, 37 minutes by April 2012,” he said.
He also added that an analysis of available data demonstrated that when porting requests were handled by properly configured automated systems at each mobile network, they could be done even faster.
“Accordingly, the NCA and the mobile operators agreed a set of performance goals for each step of the process. By June 2012, average porting time had dropped to one hour, 24 minutes,” he added.
The most recent data, however, he explained, showed typical porting times between two to 22 minutes, with average in the range of seven to eight minutes.
The authority, he said, had received complaints about the way some agents of the mobile network operators were handling the MNP exercise.
“NCA has received complaints about agents in the field, acting on behalf of various mobile networks, misinforming or deceiving customers regarding the porting process. While we work with the mobile networks to bring their agents to order, we wish to caution the public regarding stories they may hear,” he said.
The Minister of Communication, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said the inception of the MNP had helped networks to improve their network quality due to heightened competition and also given customers the opportunity to demand better quality of service and care.
Government, he also said, would implement policies to help grow MNP in Ghana and the telecommunication industry.
He said with the inception of the SIM registration exercise, issues related to anonymous threats and insults were a thing of the past and criminal activities on mobile phones were also effectively tracked.