Mobile Number Portability: A Hit or A Miss?

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Submitted by Osombah S.W on Mon, 30/05/2011 - 1:27pm

Kenya recently introduced number portability service but the demand has been much lower than anticipated. So was it a success or failure?

Kenya’s telecommunications market has four mobile operators namely: Safaricom, Airtel, Orange and Econet’s YU.

Some argue that this number is way above the market. At one point Rene Meza, the Managing Director of Airtel Kenya said that the Kenyan market can accommodate a maximum of three mobile operators beyond that, it is saturated.

The increase in competition in the market has led to a vigorous battle among the mobile operators ranging from price wars to alleged sabotage.

Mobile phone users have been the greatest beneficiaries of this battle with the reduction of call and sms rates being drastically reduced.

The market is largely dominated by Safaricom which boasts of approximately 17 million subscribers but of late they have been given a run for their money by the new operators who have joined the market.

Most people however, are hesitant to change their mobile network operator for fear of losing their established contacts and also to avoid the inconvenience of broadcasting their new number to friends & relatives.

Some of the operators launched complaints to the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) alleging over dominance of other companies.

It is against this background that the government through Communication Commission Kenya (CCK), which is mandated to oversee smooth operations in the communication sector, decided to award a tender to a company to work on the modalities of number portability.

Mobile number portability

Mobile number portability (MNP) is a technology that enables mobile phone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

The tender was awarded to Porting Access Kenya and after a long wait, the service was rolled out in 1^st April 2011.

The service attracted mixed reactions from mobile phone users. Some welcomed it and have seen it as a move to reduce dominance of some mobile operators, and prevent one from being “a slave” to a specific operator.

However, others viewed the service as being more expensive than acquiring a new number altogether.

Below Expectations

The Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) had anticipated that the service will have a high demand but to their surprise the reception has been rather low such that after a week of the service being rolled out only 300 people had ported to different networks.

This is low considering that there are over 20 million mobile subscribers.

There are suggestions that the cost of the service is the foundation of the low reception.