This article was last published online on January 8th 2010 and is republished in light of current discussions in Jamaica on the subject. 

A recently published economic evaluation report of whether number portability (NP) should be introduced into the mobile telephony industry in the United Kingdom found that there will be a net gain to the UK economy of £98m from the introduction of mobile NP.

The report also concluded on the following points:

• The UK will be better off if number portability is introduced

• The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom should therefore require mobile operators to introduce NP

• NP should be introduced as soon as is practical.

In order to come to these conclusions the framers of the report:

• set up a framework for the economic analysis of mobile NP

• carried out extensive user surveys to estimate the likely implications and benefits of NP

• analysed with the industry the likely growth of the mobile industry and the impact of NP

• examined the likely costs of mobile NP

• created a cost benefit model of the economic evaluation and carried out sensitivity analyses

• proposed how the costs of mobile NP should be allocated between the operators

It takes a minimum of 5 working days to port a number in the UK compared to 2 hours only in Australia, USA and even as low as 20 minutes in the Republic of Ireland. On 17 July 2007, Ofcom released its conclusions from the review of UK MNP and mandated reduction of porting time to 2 working days with effect from 1 April 2008. On 29 November 2007, Ofcom completed its consultation on further reduction to porting time to 2 hours along with recipient led porting and mandated that near-instant (no more than 2 hours) recipient led porting be implemented by no later than 1 September 2009.

In Australia, mobile telephone numbers have been portable between carriers since 2001. Portability has been a great asset in allowing freedom of choice of service provider. However many telecommunications companies had special or discount rates for calls between two customers of the same service provider, which although the special rates still existed, it was made difficult for customers to determine which provider the person they were calling was with. Land line phone numbers are tied to a particular physical telephone exchange.

In Saudi Arabia, MNP has been implemented in the middle of 2006, helping to liberalize the market, raising the competition between ALJAWAL, and Mobily, the two Mobile Operators originally available in the country.

In Egypt, MNP will be introduced in the beginning of 2008. The three mobile operators in Egypt (Mobinil, Vodafone, and Etisalat) are expected to compete to get the most out of MNP.

Pakistan introduced mobile number portability in March 2007 and was the first country in its region to do so. It was introduced on 23 March 2007 and was implemented from 26 March 2007.

The Nigerian Telecommication regulatory agency (Nigeria Communications Commission, NCC) announced plans to introduce mobile number portability before the end of 2007.

Israel implemented MNP on December 3, 2007.

The Indian government also said yes to start number portability in the country and it is going to implement within soon. BM