Nigeria Mobile Number Portability Begins June 2012 NCC

Post on: 2011-11-02 By: admin

NIGERIAN Communications Commission (NCC) has set June 2012 for commencement of Mobile Number Portability (MNP).
Executive Vice Chairman of Nigeria's telecom industry umpire, Eugene Juwah, announced this on Wednesday in Lagos at Telecom Consumers Parliament, an annual event put together by NCC to get reactions from telecom subscribers in Nigeria and to mark a decade of telecom revolution in Nigeria with end users.
According to him, 'by eight months from now MNP will be available to Nigerians.'
This,' the NCC boss explained, 'will afford Nigerians opportunity to migrate or port from one telecom operator to another without losing their mobile numbers.
He added that as a result of the just concluded SIM card registration, MNP is the next in the agenda of the commission.'
He stressed that as the NCC recently licensed a group of agents consisting Interconnect /SaabGrintek/Telcordia for the exercise, the group will be responsible for the set up and implementation of Number Portability Clearing House in Nigeria, and provide an MNP administration solution in the country.
They are to carry out these within six months of receiving the license with a testing period of two months, according to the commission.
He also explained that there is a window of opportunity for those who are yet to register their SIMs.
'As SIM card registration just ended, there is a harmonisation of the entire process to ensure that only the right and clean data gets into the consolidated data infra- structure.
Those yet to register can take advantage of the harmonisation window.'
Speaking on the Consumers Parliament, Juwah said because consumers interest is considered as key to the performance of the industry, NCC created Consumer Affairs Bureau which specifically ensure that consumers interests are adequately protected.
He added that 'the Bureau has been able to discharge this responsibility through its PIE project: designed to Protect, Inform and Educate the consumers on issues of interest.'
According to him, the outreach programmes of NCC are Telecom Consumers Parliament (TCP), Consumer Outreach Programme(COP) and Consumers Town Hall Meeting(CTM).
These programmes are implemented on three tiers, Capital cities, major urban centres, and the rural areas respectively.
To date we have held 64 editions of TCP, 44 COP, and 4TCM outings, he said.
The University of Manchester (UK) trained engineer also said that 'the commission has set our eyes on Mobile Banking while the next big thing is the Broadband Initiative that we are working on', adding 'Broadband is central to the development of any country and the Nigerian government is ready to promote the growth in order to take voice and data access to all ends of the country.'
Furthermore, Juwah said what is paramount to the commission is to have a telecom industry that is robust, vibrant and efficient and which will be impetus to greater economic development of the country.
We are trying to promote an industry that will fully support the president's transformation agenda, he added.
NCC's boss, however, did not fail to mention impediments to the growth of the telecom sector.
The main obstacles, according to him, have been that of quality of service that has not reached the envisaged level of efficiency.
'Erratic public power, vandalisation of telecom infrastructure, lack of basic infrastructure, high level of in security, multiple taxation, militancy, all collectively affect expected performance form of the industry.'
After a decade of telecom operation in Nigeria, EVC also said telecom industry has attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of about N2.8 trillion($18 billion), increased revenue to Federation Account, led to mass direct employment of Nigerians by services providers, engagement of millions of Nigerians in the downstream sector of the industry, and boosted business transaction between Nigeria and other countries of the world.
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