The Nigerian Communications Commission says mobile operators will henceforth pay a porting transaction fee of N450 on each subscriber than they receive from another network.
In a document titled ‘Nigeria Mobile Number Portability: Business rules and port order processes’, released on Monday, the commission added that the fee might vary from time to time at the regulator’s discretion.
The NCC stated that the only porting transaction charges permitted under the Nigeria MNP Business Rules would be the charge levied by the Number Portability Clearinghouse Administrator on the respective recipient operator for each successfully completed porting transaction.
It said neither the recipient nor donor operator would be allowed or entitled to charge customers for requesting to use the porting service nor for porting their number but added that it was at the discretion of the operator to charge a customer for the SIM card.
The commission said, “The porting transaction fee charged by the NPC Administrator for each successful port shall be N450 and may at the NCC’s sole discretion be varied from time to time, after consultation with the industry.
“The NPC Administrator shall not charge a fee for processing emergency repatriation porting transactions.”
NCC added that the NPC Administrator would issue invoices on a monthly basis to each recipient operator, with invoices detailing the number of successful porting transactions completed for all mobile service providers and multiplied by the NCC approved porting transaction fee.”
It added that all mobile service providers would settle the NPC Administrator’s invoices in a timely manner within the timescales and using the process defined in the commercial contract between the NPC Administrator and the Nigerian mobile service providers.
In a related development, the commission said Mobile Number Portability activities fell by 75.05 per cent in the month of December 2020.
The regulatory body in its ‘Incoming and outgoing porting activities of mobile network operators’ report stated that telecommunications service providers recorded only 9,879 MNP activities.
This shows a decrease of 29,712 porting activities as against 39,591 recorded for the month of November 2020.
In the report, the commission noted that out of the 9,879 porting activities in December, 4,085 were ‘incoming porting activities’, while 5,794 were ‘outgoing porting activities’.
Further breakdown of the statistics provided by NCC showed that 2,988 subscribers moved from Airtel network to others within the period under review.
This shows a decrease of 9,743 subscribers against the 12,731 that left the service provider in November.
Also, 1,431 subscribers moved from Globacom Nigeria. This shows a decrease of 3,813 customers that left the network as against 5,244 that left in November.
On its part, 9mobile recorded 640 subscribers deserting its network for others in December, as against 2,636 recorded for November 2020, showing a decrease of 1,996 customers.
Similarly, 735 subscribers left MTN network in December 2020 as against 2,638 subscribers recorded in November. This shows a decrease of 1,903 customers.
The regulatory body said on the incoming table, 9mobile welcomed 1,734 subscribers in December, a decrease of 5,202 subscribers as against 6,936 subscribers gained in November 2020.
For Airtel, 1,509 subscribers moved from other networks to its network, showing a decrease of 3,727 subscribers as against 5,236 subscribers received in the month of November.
During the period under review, MTN Nigeria gained 792 subscribers, a decrease of 3,133 subscribers as against 3,925 inward porting recorded for November 2020.
On the other hand, Globacom recorded 50 subscribers porting to its network in December 2020, a decrease of 195 subscribers as against 245 subscribers gained in October 2020.
