Mobile number portability to spark new price wars

Experts say operators will need to assess their strategy as their markets start to saturate and the importance of customer retention increases.

Operators are advised to focus on segmentation and value added services portfolios as a means to subscriber retention.

However, under the new system that the Communication Commission of Kenya has proposed to implement number portability in the country, there will be a requirement for an independent operator to carry out an All Call Query Centralised System, where the originating network receives a call to a number that has already been misrated and sends a query to a centrally administered number portability database which is then routed to the new servicing network.

This will, however, involve registration fees and extra charges for subscribers who wish to port their numbers to other networks.  

CCK has proposed that migrating subscribers pay a one-time porting fee of not more than Ksh1 per call, which many in the sector believe would be a deterrent to price-sensitive customers, even the smallest changes in price would affect their calling patterns and use of the network, leading to increased customer resistance to the service.

“Number portability will increase the complications experienced by operators in interconnection between networks as the interconnection modules in use by the operators today are ill-equipped to deal with customers whose calls have to be forwarded from one network to another,” said an industry player who did not wish to be named.

Currently, the Kenyan numbering plan in does not enable callers to distinguish tariffs from fixed networks to mobile networks and vice versa.