Uche Onwudiwe, chief operating officer, Interconnect ClearingHouse Nigeria Limited, a Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) licenced company to implement Mobile Number Portability (MNP).
 His experience in the industry dates back to 1994 when he ran a company called Technologies Incorporated in the US before his return to Nigeria.
Onwudiwe,  spoke to miebi senge and peter ugwu on issues around regulators, operators and the company’s readiness towards swift and seamless mobile number portability regime expected to start before end of Q1, 2013 in the country. 
 
Place of a Clearing House in the IT Ecosystem
Our role is to be the hub for connecting operators, value added service providers and fixed line PTOs, especially in routing their chat back and forth whether data or voice.
We have also been awarded mobile number portability (MNP) licence, which means that we will be responsible for managing the database of all the numbers that have ported from one network to another – we are the ones to provide the services.
 
Mobile Number Portability
Its main purpose is to provide a seamless migration for subscribers to move from operator ‘A’ to operator ‘B’ without losing their (original) number.
You do not have to update your database while moving to the other network. It is a free service for the subscriber.
 You initiate it by choosing the new network you would want to join; which forms part of the process to move your services from one network to the new one.
 
MNP’s Commercial Value Proposition
MNP makes commercial sense to the operators, especially the newer ones who will come into the market.
 Whereby a subscriber may have an existing number but has not received optimally beneficial service from the old network. If a new network comes in offering different services, then mobile number portability offers them the opportunity to move back and forth.
 Thus, the new operator definitely will come with packages or services they know the present players do not have and the main target will be to attract traffic to their network.
 If you come new into a market, some people are already there, you need to start building up the network.
Perhaps, people may stop carrying three or four phones; they may have just one or two. Because the new system allows them to move to another network, you can ask them, ‘hey move to my network I will offer you this service or that’. So it is a very beneficial platform to acquire subscribers by the operators.
 
Critical Regulatory Issues
The regulator’s role remains to ensure that the network base of the operators is at optimal level. The fear the operators will have now that mobile number portability is in place is that their subscribers can move at anytime, so they have to work to ensure their quality of service do not disappoint.
 There will be no more fears of probably one has to change his database to move my number to a different network. 
So, the Nigeria Communications Commission’s role of providing quality service and total monitoring in the industry have been met, because it allows the subscribers to move from one network to another.
The bulk of responsibility lies with operators who have to be apt to maintain their subscriber base from depreciating.
 
Will MNP Affect Voice Calls and SMS Rates?
Actually, the process has higher percentage of bringing down the rates.
Currently, Nigerian consumers are not just smart; they know the costs of these rates.
Even those who use different phones for different networks could be seen from the point that operators, apart from network issues, they have different packages.
 So, people are going to move their numbers to a network with either best quality of service or packages they offer.
So, rates are relative; you may have SMS package that is free but you cannot make a call without paying anything.
Sometimes, the network with best quality of service may charge higher rate, and people may want to be there, hence they can make their calls seamlessly. In essence, mobile number portability will create a healthy competition.
 The strength of the networks will be tested. Virtually every network has upgraded its network; therefore, mobile number portability is a litmus test to ascertain the strength of each network and the subscriber will be the umpire.
So, the call rate may not necessarily move up, rather it may come down. The basic issue is quality of service which must definitely appreciate.
 
MNP Has Been Delayed For Two Years, What Are The Hiccups?    
Just like anything in life, people do not always easily embrace change. And this thing has to do with a particular number of people who may not want to move on.
Once they understand the value or enough pressure from the Nigeria Communications Commission to say you must go in this direction and people say; ‘ok, let’s go ahead and make the change’.
 Initially, there were a lot of complaints based on resources, infrastructural inefficiency, and whatever the case may be.
However, NCC gave the operators a wide time to build up their network bases, at the same time, NCC said this is the day we are moving.
 The date is there and if you do not move there are associated penalties. At that point everybody realized NCC was serious and said, ‘instead of trying to hold back, let’s move on.’ It got to a point people who were holding back are the ones currently trying to make sure things move on smoothly.
They have also seen the value; where they thought they will be losing, they have actually seen benefits. Now, they say, if people can actually move, I can as well get them on my network.
 
Technologies Involved in MNP Implementation
On technologies involved – on the operators’ side they would have the porting gateway, OSS (Open-source software) and BSS (Base station subsystem), and the internal networks that are affected by number portability.
Because in the past we have a number range like 0802, 0803, etc., but you have a number range that is fixed on one network, billing it in such a way that anything that starts with a particular number is charged a certain rate.
 But now, you have to check the whole number. 0802, 0803, whatever the preface is, the number has to be checked.
Their internal system has to be built to absorb different number ranges.
 Their HRIs has to be changed. It’s what directs calls on what number that routs on it. They have to get a porting gateway which is the infrastructure that communicates with our (clearinghouse) systems; that when a subscriber requests to migrate from one network to another, that request, acceptance and revalidation go through that system to our system.
We are then required to respond back to the two parties involved. When the port process has been completed we inform the parties involved that this port has now been completed; that this subscriber has moved from operator ‘A’ to operator ‘B’, everybody update your data base. And for the ones on value added or fixed line service providers, out of that process, they will get notified that this subscriber has moved or if they moved again, they are now in operator ‘C’. In simple layman’s term, those are the areas affected on the side of the operators.
 
What is the Economy Of Scale? 
If you ask the NCC othe economy of scale or the benefit, where they will see it as success is when the subscriber is able to port.
For the operator who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars to upgrade their full network they may have a higher number.
Now, their licences requirement entails they have to operate on MNP, therefore, it is already part of the system.
Nevertheless, they have to upgrade before they can operate on that level. So, to them, the higher number of subscribers will be the main thing to convince them that they have broken even in the process.
Remember, it is not just the cost of implementation; they have the cost of acquiring the subscriber.
However, if they make the right subscribers they will definitely make their money. They have to brazen up their marketing approaches, particularly towards the subscribers who are dissatisfied with their current network.
 
MNP’s success rate in Africa and Developed Markets
It has worked in Ghana, most recently Kenya. Also South Africa has implemented and running MNP successfully.
There are other countries that are looking at that; they have not started but they are aware of the efficacies of MNP. 
At the developed markets, the US, UK and a number of other countries have implemented it. In the US, for example it takes a couple of minutes to port from one network to another. It operates quite seamless.
When Ghana started, it took them about two days to port from one network to another. Now they do it in about seven minutes.
So, that is what we are targeting. We are starting off with two days, to at least get all the systems in place and in a short while it will take couple of minutes to port.
 
How Prepared are you for MNP?
The same way the operators have to upgrade infrastructure, we have also upgraded our facilities. We had to upgrade our interconnect service switches. The MNP clearinghouse manages request to port from one operator to another.
Somebody goes into a shop and say I want to move from one here to there. The request is then sent to us; we review the data and send it back to operator ‘A’ and ‘B’. By the time the validation is done, the person moves. That is one platform.
The same time, on our Interconnect Service is where route calls, SMS for various operators and service providers. They have to know that this subscriber has moved from one operator to another.
 That is why had to upgrade out network to be able to query MNP database and find out if these individuals have moved or still on the network of one operator or the other. All around, we have a huge investment to make as well to make the process a hitch-free one.
 
What About Credit Losses?
But then, a subscriber wouldn’t have a million naira on his phone. If you have few credits, you may want to finish it before moving to another network.
 Like I said earlier, Nigerians are smart and they can handle whatever situation that comes their way. For instance, people may transfer their credit to another phone or someone else’s before porting.
 
Challenge of Infrastructure Capacity and Traffic
That is for the operators to envisage and I will say, yes, they have. They have been planning for a while. Why they may have said ‘hold on before implementation’ it was not because they do not want it, but they were upgrading their networks to handle it. Information available indicates that virtually all the operators have upgraded their networks.
 So, they are all planning. And the process makes provision for you to port as many times as possible. However, when you port for the first time and want to port again, you may have to wait for 90 days before you can port again.
It is so, because in all the works the operators have done they should be given a chance to prove themselves whether they have better network or service. NCC on their own said give them 90 days; so if I move from one network to another, I need to test the strength, ‘travel with it’ and determine, probably it was not just their that is having issues at that time, this I have to find out before moving again.
 So, there is 90 days window before you can port from one network to another and you can port as many times as you like. Well, on traffic, we hope for a huge one, because that is how we can sustain the system.
There are worries that because Nigerians carry two, three to four phones there may not be any migration, but I don’t think people really enjoy carrying such number of phones.
There are also issues like maintaining the phones, theft and other issues. In other countries, people carry one phone.
So, our target through this MNP capability is that we improve on the networks or provide other services that people will benefit. At a time, people will move down to one phone, because the fear of failed network would have been taken care of.