Mobile Number Portability

Mobile Number Portability is a service that enables you to keep your mobile phone number when changing from one mobile service provider to another.

So, if you switch between service providers, you do not have to go through the trouble of informing all your friends, family, colleagues and other contacts because your number stays the same.

Mobile Number Portability has been touted as the next big thing, the Nigerian Communications Commission has adopted the Recipient Led Porting Method, and where subscribers wishing to port his/her number is required to contact the new network (Recipient).

The new network provider then sends the number portability request (NPR) to the NPC, or the Number Portability Clearing House with a matching SMS to a SHORT CODE specially earmarked for the process…..(would be announced during launch)

That is officially the beginning of the PORT process and you are expected to receive an acknowledgment SMS telling you that your PORT process has commenced

Countries around the world have started opening their telecommunications markets to competition. Telecommunications competition has proven to accelerate the deployment of telecommunications services more quickly and cost effectively than past monopolies have achieved.

Comprehensive View

Number Portability is not just about routing calls in networks.

The NPC Number Porting process has validated messaging between a Recipient Participant (Service Provider who is gaining the number) and a Donor Participant (Service Provider who is losing the number).

Broadcast messages to Other Participants occur as needed, when the other Service Providers need information in order to correctly route calls from their networks. The process uses tunable timers to insure the port occurs in a timely fashion.

In order to successfully provision Number Portability End-to-End, Service Fulfillment Aspects are equally important. The successful completion of such tasks is the pre-condition for routing calls to ported numbers correctly. These tasks include:

    Order Processing: (starting from the subscriber’s request to a service provider to have a number ported)

    Porting Provisioning: (provisioning of an operator’s OSSs, BSSs, and network(s)

    Porting Notification for Network(s) Synchronization: (informing all other operators about the port)

Nigerian Communications Approach

Centralized / Clearinghouse Approach

The easiest way to standardize the ordering and provisioning process is to simply centralize them, meaning one process and a single standardized set of interfaces (e.g. GUI, SOAP, FTP) to be used by all service providers.

Infrastructure can be utilized and expanded to accommodate other services, such as number administration resulting in increased and more efficient utilization of numbering capacity, individual number allocation, local loop unbundling, carrier (pre-) selection, directory services, ENUM, etc

The many advantages of the centralized clearinghouse approach can be summarized as follows:

•     Single standard mechanism supporting fair ordering, provisioning and notification for Number Portability.

•    Eliminates reliance on the donor operator, thereby providing the ability to maintain portability when operators fail and exit the market. Donor operator is no longer involved in routing calls to subscribers it no longer owns.

•     Optimized routing, and the resulting elimination of the costs of “tromboning” and additional conveyance, will serve as an inducement to win end users, fostering competition.

•     Preclusion of network congestion, which would arise on the donors’ networks as ported calls are routed through them.

•     Supports fair management to promote competition.

•     Enables timely, accurate and efficient processing of number ports.

•     Reliable, secure, scalable and flexible.

•     Fair & neutral management to promote competition.

•     Enables Regulator to audit and monitor porting activities, mandate and law compliance of operators as well as to reinforce such rules.

•     Solution simplifies Lawful Interception.

•     Infrastructure is expandable to accommodate other services.

    Enables Fixed-to-Mobile Number Portability.

    Cheapest and most efficient long term solution for the entire industry.

Implementation.

Interconnect Clearing House Nigeria Limited and Telcordia Technologies of the United States has been licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission to provide this service in Nigeria and come Monday April 22, 2013, it is expected to be launched in Nigeria.

When MNP becomes operational, subscribers might no longer be compelled to carry many handsets at the same time for the fear of network failure.

And when next your current network operator fails to provide good quality of service, you suddenly have the freedom to switch to another network.

It will encourage all telecoms operators to provide services at an optimal level, and on the long run, it’s a WIN-WIN situation for the subscribers, the Network Operators and the Regulator.