Mobile Number Portability in Ghana passes 2 Million

The National Communications Authority (NCA) has in a news release noted that since its launch in less than four years, Ghana's Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service reached on February 19, 2015 the milestone of two million successful porting requests processed for Ghana consumers.

MNP is a system which allows mobile telephony customers to move from one service provider to another whilst retaining their old mobile number.

According to the NCA, mobile phone environment in Ghana shares many characteristics with other markets in Africa, such as the predominance of prepaid customers, the availability of multiple competing mobile networks, and the proportion of customers that have accounts and SIMs at more than one of the networks.

The NCA noted, however, that Ghana's success in MNP is singular; and can be largely attributed to the initial advance preparations and rigorous testing and the collaboration amongst all the key stakeholders; National Communications Authority, Porting Access Ghana (the central MNP service provider), and the mobile network operators as well as continuous monitoring and analysis of results by NCA.

The NCA stated that in January 2015, over 95% of all porting requests were completed in five minutes or less and no customer was charged to port their number.

Additional Information on Porting Mobile

According to the NCA, Mobile telephony customers who wish to change networks without changing their number need only take their mobile phone (with SIM) and an ID to a shop or agent of the network they wish to join.

It is important, however, for the customers to understand that they will be leaving their current network.

Any remaining credit in that account will, therefore be lost, and their old SIM will stop working. Customers are also reminded to copy any contact numbers they have stored on their old SIM, though it is usually possible to do this even after porting was completed and the SIM deactivated.

Porting done by street agents on behalf of the mobile network operators makes the process convenient to the customer, which on balance is in the public interest.

NCA cautions the public that it is NOT possible to have the same number on two different networks simultaneously and that any agent who states otherwise should not be trusted. Nobody should hand their phone over to an agent who makes such claims.

The customer's new network is responsible to keep the porting customer informed as to the progress of the porting request and to resolve any porting or other account problems that may occur, even after it is completed.

However, if that network is unable to resolve problems to the customer's satisfaction, NCA can be contacted through the following means:

Web site: http://www.nca.org.gh/40/125/Make-a-Complaint.html

Email: complaints@nca.org.gh

Phone: 030 701 1419

Facebook: MNP Ghana (group page)

NCA extends its appreciation for the contribution toward the successful MNP implementation by all mobile operators and by Porting Access Ghana and promises to continue monitoring and enhancing this vital aspect of the consumer choice landscape.