June 03, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1428

KARACHI, June 2: Only 17,000 cell-phone subscribers, out of over 52 million phone users, have, so far, availed the new facility of mobile number portability (MNP) since its launching on March 23, 2007.

In the first one-and-a-half month of MNP operations, only 10,000 people have changed the service from one subscriber to another, while 20,000 made the request for shifting their service along with their code from one operator to another.

So far, neither the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the watchdog of the telecom sector, nor the Pakistan MNP Data Base Guarantee Limited (PMD), a body set up by the PTA to look after MNP affairs, have come out with real figures about the gainers or losers under the MNP facility.

The PTA had issued the figures of MNP facility (port in and port out) only once since March 23 as its official had been saying that the PTA was dependent on the arrival of data from the PMD. PTA was supposed to issue data every month after the launch. Meanwhile, despite repeated attempts, PMD’s acting chief executive officer Amir Shehzad failed to reveal the actual figures. He only said that the PMD had given the data to the PTA.

Market sources said a leading player has so far been a loser (port out to other companies), while two new players are gaining customers. Keeping in view the figure of 17,000, it seems that the public response to MNP facility has been very languid.

Even cellphone operators came up with half-hearted public awareness campaigns in initial days of the launching, but they soon suspended the publicity after receiving cold response from customers.

The PTA had also created public awareness, but it failed.Many consumers are reluctant to use the new facility of mobile number portability (MNP) because of lack of awareness and easy availability of new cellphone connections at Rs150 only.

Some companies are charging Rs500 for MNP activation while new players in the market are offering it free of cost.

Chief of Customer Operations, Ufone, Naveed Khalid Butt, told Dawn from Islamabad that lack of awareness among general public can be blamed for a cold response to the new facility.

When customers can get a prepaid SIM connection for Rs150 only in a few seconds, why they would go for availing the MNP service which will take four days for a prepaid connection and six to eight days for a postpaid connection.

A customer needs to present a completed application form, a written request on company’s letterhead (for corporate customers), CNIC copy and the actual SIM. It takes approximately four working days to port a number, provided there are no obligations/liabilities on the existing cellular network.

In other countries, there is a time of two to 30 days for getting the MNP facility depending on the package of customers.

Without giving the figure of porting out of customers from Ufone, he said the company had gained 4,000 customers from different companies since March 23.

Cell-phone operators had invested Rs5 to 6bn to launch the MNP after a thorough testing. PTA thinks that consumers benefiting from the facility would be between 1.5 to two per cent of the total cellular phone users as worldwide ratio of consumers changing operator is three per cent.

The figure of cellphone subscribers in Pakistan has touched over 52 million.

MNP offers mobile customers the ability to move from their current network operator to another operator still keeping their complete mobile number, including the code intact.