A report by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on subscribers’ usage of number portability platform from January to September this year indicated that users were no longer exploring the option of porting their numbers as they did in the past.
Rather, subscribers appeared to be buying new lines to make up for hiccups in their old lines, thereby raising the number of telephone lines in the country higher by the day over the months.
According to the report, subscribers exploring the number portability platform declined by 55 percent as subscribers continue to opt for new lines on their mobile devices many of which now come with dual SIM slots.
Specifically, statistical data provided by the Commission data on how subscribers have been exploring the porting option over the past two years showed that whereas from January to September 2017 a total of 145,957 numbers were ported, the corresponding period of this year recorded a total of 65,245 subscribers porting to new networks.
Simply put, Mobile Number Porting (MNP) means taking an existing phone number from one service provider and transferring it to another. Usually, it involves closing the old account.
It would be recalled that the NCC introduced the mobile number porting option in 2013 in order to allow subscribers who are not satisfied with the quality of their networks to migrate to another at no cost.
The regulatory measure was invariably aimed at promoting healthy competition among telecom operators in terms of investments in infrastructure and other resources to improve the quality of their services.
As more phones come into the nation’s telecom market with dual or triple SIM ports as well as the crashing of new SIM card to as low as N100, subscribers have gradually be shunning the porting option by getting new lines.
