Launched with high hopes of excitement that the scheme will drive competition few years ago, investigations by Business Hilights have revealed that since the networks have eased access to new SIM cards, mobile number portability (MNP) is on the sliding trend from over 132,000 in the first year to paltry 27,644 as at December 2016.
Only recently, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said telecommunications service providers recorded 27,644 MNP activities in December, 2016.
A document on ‘Incoming and Outgoing Porting Activities of Mobile Network Operators’ from the regulator showed that there was a decrease of 6,475 in the porting activities during the period as against 34,119 recorded in the preceding month.
The report disclosed that “Out of the total porting activities during the period, 14,059 were ‘incoming’ while 13,585 were ‘outgoing’.
It also disclosed that only 4,747 subscribers migrated from Airtel to other networks during the month and that 4,349 customers moved from MTN to other networks as 3,010 subscribers left Globacom network to others, while 1,479 customers of Etisalat ported to other networks within the period.
In terms of incoming porting statistics, the report revealed that Etisalat enjoyed had 10,956 customers on its network to lead others during the period.
MTN came second with 1,240 subscribers while Globacom had 1,005 subscribers and Airtel, 858 customers.
Some subscribers who were asked if they are ready to port argued that there is no reason for that because the expected competition amongst the networks are not there and there is no need of getting entangled in running up and down for porting sake rather than to stop at a convenient Bus Stop and dash into a roadside network dealer of your choice and in less than 10 minutes, you are already making calls with a new SIM card.
To them, this process killed MNP and in years to come, will force the process into extinction otherwise.
