Abstract
In the telecommunications industry, mobile numbers are increasingly being seen as an asset of the regulator. The freedom of the customer using it is left to him/her to decide which service provider to use while retaining the same number. Mobile number portability (MNP) has been introduced to provide a platform for this freedom to the customer. The Telecommunications market Regulator in Kenya, the Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK), began the course of mobile number portability in 2010 through newspaper advertisement. The regulator had an aim that in the end, the right customer experience will be provided by the service providers, help service providers building profitable and lasting relationships between the service providers and their customer, and to differentiate themselves in the market. In this paper, we seek to evaluate the performance of MNP in Kenya since its launch. This paper seeks to find out how the service has performed after the first three months of operation. We survey and analyze MNP framework in Kenya and compare that to MNP in Japan, Finland, Sweden and Hong Kong to establish the future of MNP in Kenya. It first looks at the MNP framework as used in Kenya, the procedure for reversal in case the customer is dissatisfied with a service provider which he moves to and makes a reference to how the service has performed in other markets such as Finland, Sweden, and Hong Kong in order to enable comparative observations. Since there has been very little literature published for countries in Africa it will only make comments on countries like Egypt, South Africa and Nigeria. Further, it gives recommendations to the participating parties.
Highlights
Mobile number portability (MNP) is defined as the ability of a customer to change their mobile network operator and/or service provider while retaining the same mobile phone number for the provision of the same service as explained by Durukan et al [15]
The services available across mobile service providers has been limited to voice calls and a small segment of value added services (VAS) such as the short message service (SMS), roaming, voice mail, web access, call waiting, call hold and call forwarding services which are fundamentally supported by almost all Intelligent Networks
Telecommunications market regulator, the Communication Commission of Kenya CCK initiated the process of mobile Number portability in 2010 through newspaper advertisements asking the public to submit their views on the need for number portability service
Summary
Mobile number portability (MNP) is defined as the ability of a customer to change their mobile network operator and/or service provider while retaining the same mobile phone number for the provision of the same service as explained by Durukan et al [15]. It is aimed at deregulating the telecommunications sector by reducing the former fixed association between the service providers and the mobile subscriber while promoting competition in the marketplace for mobile services. CCK assigned a third party - Mobile Porting Access Limited the duty of rolling out the MNP in Kenya in April 2010
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