Ben Uzor Jr
Consultations have begun between Mobile Number Portability (MNP) firms and top-level management of telecommunications firms in Nigeria’s highly competitive market on technical and commercial issues critical to the successful implementation of the scheme, Business Day can reliably now inform. This is ahead of September date set by Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) for the commencement of the scheme in the country’s telecoms sector. Beyond that, MNP will enable Nigeria’s 90 million mobile telephone users to retain their numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.
The contract for the establishment of the MNP Clearing House, which forms the pillar of the scheme, was awarded last October. A consortium of three firms had won the bid to operate. The firms that make up the consortium are Interconnect Clearing House Nigeria (ICN) Telecordia of the USA and Saab Grintek of South Africa. These operators, according to the telecoms regulator will make it easy for mobile network operators to comply with number portability mandates by creating a centralised system for porting all number types which would thus ensure a smooth and trouble-free process.
The NCC had earlier explained that these MNP firms would have only six months to build out requisite infrastructure to implement the scheme. In addition, an extra two months, according to the commission would be given to the MNP operators to carry out testing before rolling out the scheme in the country. However, Business Day also gathered that the scope of the ongoing consultations from a technical perspective revolves around how MNP firms can integrate with telecom provider’s Operations Support Systems (QSSs) and internal business processes, such as customer care, billing and order management.
It is critical that network element systems are integrated so the network can obtain the correct routing information for calls to ported numbers. “Fundamentally, telecoms operators and number portability providers will be discussing systems integration and interoperability of their systems. And of course, there will also negotiate on interconnect charges and network handshake. There will also be legal issues to discuss as it is critical to the success of the scheme. Discussions will also revolve around terms of billing, terms of porting, etc”, Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) told Business Day in a telephone interview.
“I am not aware of this development. But I believe telcos and MNP firms will have lengthy discussions on technical issues relating to interface of systems initially before commercial issues. “There certainly has to be an interface between telcos and MNP providers if the scheme is to be successful”, Lanre Ajayi, past president, Nigerian Internet Group (NIG) told Business Day in an interview. From a commercial perspective, Business Day further learnt that discussions will border on the service charges levied on a subscriber who is moving from one network to the other and the sharing arrangements of such charges.
Business Day also gathered MNP firms and telcos are also negotiating on commercial agreements relating to the ability of a subscriber to pay his bill generated from the last telco. This is in the case of post paid subscribers. Other pertinent issues are the time it takes to port which at some point will became a subject of focus by the both telcos and MNP providers. Prior to March 2008, it took a minimum of 5 working days to port a number in the UK compared to only 2 hours in the US, as low as 20 minutes in the Republic of Ireland, 3 minutes in Australia and even a matter of seconds in New Zealand.
Published on Business Day, Thursday 23 February 2012
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