NCC Plans GSM 'Number Portability'

Gsm Operators To Lose Phone Number Monopoly

Soon, your Glo number can become an MTN line—and vice versa—without you having to change your SIM card. And you may wish to do that at will.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says it has concluded plans to break the monopoly over numbers of subscribers.

This new regime, known as “number portability”, will allow subscribers to move from one network to the other, without necessarily changing their SIM cards or altering their numbers.

The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Mr Ernest Ndukwe, disclosed this new plan during the fourth anniversary of the Telecoms Consumer Parliament held in Abuja at the weekend.

Ndukwe said the number portability would help reduce the complaints of “poor quality of service on the network of certain operators”, as subscribers would have the opportunity to change operators at will.

NCC said the number portability would push all the mobile phone operators to reduce their tariffs and improve the quality of their services since the monopoly over subscribers would be removed.

Many subscribers said they had remained on particular mobile networks because of the fear of losing their identified numbers, promising to be more adventurous as soon as the number portability was implemented.

But the Big Question is When Will This Be? Will It Actually Work?                                                                               

This is a nice idea but is it backed by enabling laws?

@otokx
Don't get too legalistic! This is how it is in the UK and I am sure its the same in Europe

this has worked fine in this side of the world for about 8yrs (i think or may be a little bit more). I think it gives the subscriber beta servicesa and also means the telecoms provider works very hard at retaining the customer. One thing u have to be careful with (as it initial occured here and still does with some telecomes provider) is that if you port your number from glo to mtn, technically its now a mtn number. so if a mtn user should call you it should be a call charged as mtn to mtn. but no, it MAY be charged as mtn to glo as the call is routed first to glo who then route the call back to mtn. it got corrected here by some telecoms provider (due to oftel regulations) but it has happened that some many times, you get over charged and if you're not aware then tough luck, if you are and call them up (after speaking to the manager) or writing in you get yourmoney back.

In naija - what represents OFTEL and does it work?
Whats the complaint procedure. I bought a glo recharge card myself (not tampered with at all) when i went on to load my card with the 500 naira it wont work, it took me about 3days and lots of phone calls with EXTREMELY poor customer service. i would have given up but i thot no.

That should have been a complaint to OFTEL, but in naija, Mike adenuga (at that time) would have paid peanuts (mega money to me) to get them to wipe out my complaint!!! 

So,  its a shame though and i only hope that things get better in naija, there is no employment, but if someone in the project management team of this telecoms compnay were working right, nearly half of the unemployed will be employed.

The vast majority of work to be done, people willing to do it but companies bent on making 1000000000000000000000000000000% profit at d expense of d people

Naija ,

Heard same on the news yesterday. I just can't wait for it to happen.

this will complicate the whole issue. Imagine every one moving to MTN

Switching from glo to MTN and vice versa at will is a good thing to happen.  But will it be implmented?  If this policy does not favour some operators they can run to Minitry of Justice and one person will say 'oh it runs contrary to section 1000000 of Communication Act of 2020.'

Does this also mean that if i switch my Glo line to Mtn, i get to enjoy mtn freebies like free night calls and i now load my phone with mtn recharge card instead of Glo's?

and also,

Are there going to be hidden charges or technicalities involved in switching to another network?

Someone should please throw some more light, we have to debate this matter well o, because nigeria's case is always a different issue.

SO MAKE WE KNOW WETHER TO SUSPEND THE POLICY NOW O!

Me love this idea O.

*Especially people wey get 100sim cards ^{Pple like me}


Its Still in the Making!

Hey folks,
   I've been wanting to post a topic, but it hasn't been successful. How do I goa bout it? Thanks

or better still, in this window where you are reading this replies, scroll down and you see a link titled send topic, you can use that.

To me this is just rubbish, like I understand the different carriers would still have different tariffs but they would not have a unique number assigned to each carrier. (eg. no more 0803, 0805 to tell you what particular network the person is on)

Na wa o.

What is in this?

When are we going to start believing in ourselves?

@Topic

I don't like the idea at all.

Example: If my number is originally 0803bbbbbb, basically an MTN line, i swapped to glo but still retain my old number.
My friends who knows me to be MTN will now be paying fortune to call me. How many of them am i going to advertise to of my move to glo.

Let glo be glo and Celtel be Celtel.

lets wait and c what will happen, at all at all na witch, make we c wether e go work first

this thing want to work die,
if u don't feel satisfied with a network u don't have to buy a new sim card anymore, thats the logic! because the NCC was like out of the 38million lines in nigeria a full six million are inactive(i know i've contributed my share!)

I remember posting on this thread. What happened to my post?