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ACCRA. — Ghana’s National Communications Authority projects the number of subscribers that ported networks to hit one million by next month.
This follows the number of subscribers who successfully completed ports increasing to more than 915 000 by the close of August, two years after NCA introduced Mobile Number Portability.

According to the NCA, out of the figure, 447 095 mobile phone subscribers successfully conducted porting in the second year alone, which ended July 7, depicting an increase of 21 percent over the corresponding period last year.

MNP is a permanent system which allows mobile telephony customers to move from one service provider to another while retaining their old mobile number.

The director-general of the NCA, Paarock van Percy, described the exercise as a success.
“Current figures show that the net impact on each operator ranges from a positive of 5 percent to a negative of 2 percent of their respective subscriber bases, with new ports typically running between 25 000 and 50 000 per month,” he added.

He attributed the success to the initial advanced preparations and rigorous testing and the collaboration amongst all the key stakeholders comprising the NCA, Porting Access Ghana (the central MNP service provider), and the six mobile network operators-MTN, Vodafone, tiGo, Airtel, Glo and Expresso.

Van Percy said of key mention was the porting speed which had increased considerably and contributed to MNP’s success.
Following agreed process performance goals between the mobile network operators and NCA, average porting times dropped by more than 20 minutes to 5 minutes 25 seconds over the past two years.

A customer can therefore be active on his new network with his old number while still present at the shop or with the agent for his new network, according to the telecoms industry regulator.

A set of agreed performance goals which made this possible later became mandatory MNP Quality of Service standards.
According to the NCA, statistics indicate that most customers who have ported are satisfied with their decision to do so, as 75 percent of them remain active on the networks to which they have ported their numbers.

The others have since moved on to a third or fourth network, or gone back to their original network. — CAJ News.