Similarities in QoS collapsing number porting to record low of 35,655 in October
Though the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has disclosed that a total of 35,655 mobile numbers ported in the month of October, industry analysts have argued that the main reasons that usually drive the need globally are rare in Nigeria, thus resulting in abysmal porting.
Many experts that spoke to our correspondent noted that there is no difference between all the GSM networks in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and their call rates or promos from year to year.
According to Joel Maaka, a systems engineer based in Computer Village market, Ikeja, he said “There are no marked differences in the performance of the networks as to warrant porting in the first instance”.
“When they want to have problem, all of them will face the same issue and when they want to be okay, all of them will be okay, there is basically nothing differentiating them by my standards as a system engineer.
Continuing, Maaka said “many Nigerians have even forgotten that there is something like porting when anybody can walk to a roadside dealer and register a new SIM in few minutes and make a call instantly”.
It would be recalled that the new report released by the NCC showed that there was a decrease of 715 in the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) activities in the month of October, as against the 36,370 recorded in September. It said that of the 35,655 porting activities in October, 17,996 were incoming porting activities, while 17,659 were outgoing activities.
The report revealed that in the outgoing table, 6,409 subscribers moved from telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria, to other networks through the MNP in October.
NCC report also noted that 5,243 customers moved from Airtel Nigeria to other networks in the month under review. The report said 4,638 subscribers moved from Globacom to others, while 1,369 customers of Etisalat Nigeria ported to other networks within the same period.
On the incoming ports, the report said Etisalat enjoyed the exercise most as it led with an additional 14,027 customers on its network in October. MTN Nigeria came second on the gainers’ list, as it added 1,563 subscribers to its customer strength.
The gainers’ list however indicated that 1,475 subscribers moved to Airtel’s network, while Globacom gained 931 customers as well in October 2016. The exercise was flagged off on April 22, 2013 by the NCC, with the aim of deepening competition in the industry.
