The Advantage And Disadvantages Of MNP In Nigeria

Disclaimer: Please, this is a personal submission over the behaviours of mobile phone network operators in Nigeria, therefore, don't crucify me for saying my mind. Thank you.

MNP is the acronym for Mobile Number Portability. Every Nigerian knows that the telecoms regulator in Nigeria, the NCC have long been promising MNP to Nigerians for a long time now. The more Nigerians expected this process to begin within the telecoms operators in Nigeria, the more it appears that it can never be possible.
Anyway, the wait seems to be over now with the green light NCC gave that, its implementation will begin (or have began) on 26th March, 2013. Although the four major telecoms operators to begin with the MNP have not release any guidelines on their website, Nigerians are truly looking up to a time they will have the POWER to hire and fire any operator at will, for this is the major essence of the MNP implementation.
From the foregoing, let me quickly say that, after observing the behaviours among the four major operators in Nigeria, which are Glo, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat, I have personally concluded NEVER to port/migrate to any network under the MNP implementation due to the simple fact that, never will a particular network provider tire me down to their service during poor service delivery on their network. To this end, my numbers on the various networks stays as they are at the moment.

Now, every individual telecoms service subscriber to Glo, MTN, Airtel and Etisalat in Nigeria knows too well that, these four operators have one thing in common - poor service delivery. With the continuous deteriorating services these telcos are offering Nigerians and coupled with the fact that, you are sometimes locked-out by these operators from legally using the service you have subscribed, it therefore make no sense for one to migrate under this MNP regime. The issue of drop calls, over charging on calls, SMS failures and charged, data subscription yet unusable, exorbitant data tariff, unable to call with airtime availability, USSD transaction failures, party called unreachable yet with you, charges for service(s) not rendered and so on and so forth, ranges among the challenges we currently face from these operators.

Ordinarily, one would think that with the HUGE profits these telcos are presenting at the end of every year from their investment, it will present a situation of normal business environment satisfaction from the contributors (subscribers) of these huge gains with quality service delivery but alas, the reverse is the case. The trend has always been that, the subscriber is at the receiving end while the operators keep smiling to the banks at their detriment. MNP somehow will address this but not ultimately.

In pursuant of this topic, I may therefore lack substance to fully express my position but, my decision NEVER to port my number or any of my numbers remain.

ADVANTAGE OF MNP:
1. Ability to retain your NUMBER after porting to a new telecom service provider.
To me, this is the only advantage that MNP will bring to the game. My argument is hinged on the fact that, most Nigerian telecoms subscriber today that have refused to adopt a new number from another provider, despite been offered poor and terrible services from their current operator, is borne out of the fact that, majority of the people have been using the said number they don't want to lose from the inception of Mobile Telephone services in Nigeria. Therefore, switching to a new service provider will mean that, you have to notify all your contacts about your new number, thereby giving you extra work to do. But with MNP, your contacts are still intact with your KNOWN NUMBER even though you are now on operator B network.

DISADVANTAGES OF MNP:
1. Tied down for a period of 90 days. I will rather switch Sim cards on my phone than switch a telecom service provider.
Now, MNP gives you the ability to switch a network provider but, only once in 90 days. Should the operator you just migrated falls into serious network challenges, it means you will remain with them no matter your bitter experience at the moment for a 90 days period. Me? Never!

2. Jump-in but can't Jumb-out at will. Today, whenever you are having network challenges with operator A, you quickly switch to operator B by changing your Sim card. In the case of MNP, you can only jump in at a time but can't jump out as you may desire to do with MNP regime.
These and many more are the reasons I will never jump ship for any reason as the current situation stands with all the four major telecoms operators here in Nigeria. They are all birds of the same feather.

Therefore, I humbly submit that, any reasonable Nigerian that want to continue to set the pace for his/her telecoms usage, should reject MNP and embrace multiple Sim card from the four operators. Thank you.

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