Again, NCC Fixes New Date for
Mobile Number Portability
Launch
NCC Chairman, Dr Eugene Juwah
By Emma Okonji

The Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) has again fixed
another date for the launch of Mobile
Number Portability (MNP). This time,
the commission chose April 22 as the
new launch date across all networks of
Global System for Mobile
Communication (GSM).
The Director of Corporate Affairs at
NCC, Mr. Tony Ojobo, who dropped the
hint Thursday, told THISDAY in a
telephone interview that NCC
eventually settled for the April 22 MNP
launch date, having been convinced by
the network operators that their
networks were ready for the roll out of
Mobile Number Portability in Nigeria.
“We are going to celebrate it in a
colourful launch that will hold in Lagos
on April 22,” Ojobo said.
NCC had earlier warned that it was not
going to shift grounds on the planned
roll out of MNP, and insisted that the
roll out must be in April this year,
without mentioning any particular date
in April. The reason for not fixing a
particular launch date earlier, according
to Ojobo, was to allow the operators to
choose a convenient date, based on the
state of readiness of their networks. He
had however insisted that the roll out of
MNP would not exceed April this year.
NCC had fixed April 1, for the launch of
MNP, but shifted it to an unknown date
in the same month of April, after
telecoms operators came begging for
three weeks extension to enable them
complete test-run of their networks, in
preparation for the eventual roll out.
NCC had in 2006, announced for the
first time that it was going to implement
MNP, but it was not implemented, as
telecoms operators resisted it on the
ground that the network infrastructure
as at then, was not robust enough to
accommodate the challenges associated
with mobile number porting.
In 2009, NCC re-introduced Mobile
Number Portability and again the
operators turned it down, giving the
same reasons. In 2012, NCC gave
December 2012 as deadline for
operators to commence the exercise,
but they reluctantly agreed yet they
could not meet the deadline.
In January, NCC fixed March 25, as the
new date for the commencement of
MNP, but again, telecoms operators
were unable to meet up with the March
date, a situation which compelled NCC
to further shift date to April 1.
Having discovered that the April 1 date
was not going to be feasible, NCC
Thursday, announced April 22 as the
new date for the launch of MNP.
In technical parlance, Mobile Number
Portability is a process that allows
subscribers to migrate from one
network to another, in search of better
quality of service, while still retaining
the original phone number, irrespective
of the network the subscriber chooses
to migrate to.
NCC in its released guidelines for MNP,
made porting free of charge for
subscribers, but insisted that
subscribers could port their numbers,
once in every 90 days.

Source

NCC is truly a toothless bulldog. 7 years after, the telecoms infrastructure can't still accommodate MNP? Na wao.