The number of people who have ported their mobile phone lines since Mobile Number Portability (MNP) was introduced in the country will reach two million in the next four months as interest in the service continues to surge.
As at the first week of July this year, more than 1.65 million porting requests – representing 6 percent of the country’s 29.2 million mobile phone subscriptions – had been completed.
According to the NCA, which released a report on Wednesday to mark three years of Mobile Number Portability in Ghana, its primary goal of empowering mobile phone consumers with a choice to change network providers without losing their numbers has been met as the rate of porting remains consistent and stable.
“Ghana passed the one million successful port milestone on October 12, 2013… A simple rolling average method of prediction tells us that we will approach and may reach two million by the end of 2014,†it said.
Since 2011 when the NCA deployed the MNP system -- a facility that allows consumers freedom of choice to change network providers without having to change their numbers -- interest in porting has surged, with completed porting requests rising from 370,000 in the first year of implementation to over 838,000 in the third year alone.
The NCA’s consultant on Mobile Number Portability, Bob Palitz, told the B&FT that the trend so far in porting activities shows that the country will close in on its target of two million by the end of this year.
“It is most likely that it will be close. There’s no way we can tell that for sure, but it will be in that range. I was looking at it (the trend) a couple of days ago and it looks like we will be getting 1,990,000 -- so it is very close,†he said.
As at June this year, the average time to complete the porting process was 4 minutes 16 seconds, with 91 percent of the requests completed in five minutes or less, while 67 percent were completed in two minutes or less.
The efficiency in the porting process is considered to be the best in sub-Saharan Africa, which has excited the NCA, market operators, consumers and policymakers.
“The rate of porting is entirely consistent with expectations for a market such as Ghana and a porting system that is consumer-friendly and operating efficiently. The performance to date far surpasses reported results in other MNP implementations in Africa,†the NCA said.
According to the NCA report, four mobile network operators have lost more customers than they have gained from porting.
B&FT analysis of the report shows that MTN, Airtel, Glo and Expresso all recorded net losses in the race to attract mobile phone subscribers who want to change network providers for various reasons including poor service provision.
Two other providers, tiGO and Vodafone, posted net gains, with the former recording the highest gains in porting requests.
The report shows that MTN -- the biggest network provider with almost 46 percent share of the entire market -- lost a little over 400,000 subscriptions through porting, while Airtel’s subscription numbers dropped by nearly 59,000. Glo and Expresso -- the two smallest operators -- also lost 16,119 and 858 subscriptions respectively.
On the other hand, tiGO boosted its subscription numbers by more than 249,000, while Vodafone gained a little over 228,000.
The NCA said its report is inconclusive about the reasons that drive subscribers to change from one network to the other -- as there are myriad factors involved.
“It is important to avoid drawing conclusions that cannot be supported by this data. There are many different factors that can lead customers to port their numbers. Also note that the cumulative porting for any given network is not sufficiently large to have been the sole cause of changes in market rank for that network,†the regulator explained.
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