By Prince Osuagwu
LAGOS — The Nigerian Communications Commission, Monday, hinted it has pushed the processes that will lead to a well-managed number portability regime to advanced stage and would make major announcements on the development soon.

Number portability is a process that will allow mobile phone users to migrate from one network to another with the same number.

A reliable NCC source told Vanguard that the commission’s action on the development was in keeping with the words of the Executive Vice Chairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, who,  in his first major meeting with the media in January, had promised to embark on the project once the SIM Card Registration process had taken off successfully.

According to Juwah, it will make better sense to port numbers already registered.

The source said that with SIM Card Registration well underway  in different parts of the country, the attention of Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, would in the next few weeks, shift to Number Portability.

Technically, the porting process begins and ends when a subscriber initiates a request to a donor network for approval to transfer a number from  their network to the recipient’s network, the subsequent receipt of an answer from the Donor Network, and the act of informing all Operators that a number has been successfully transferred and is now active on the Recipient Network.

Apart from giving the subscribers the freedom to port number from network to network with full ability to move to the operator whose product quality and pricing are most suited to them, it is also expected that Number Portability will inject more competition which should drive down prices and increase value, and also impact on the quality of service (QoS) which the Commission said it was deploying various measures to address at the moment.

The Initial Consultation Paper on the Implementation of Mobile Number Portability was published on the Commission’s website in February 2009, and industry stakeholders and the general public raised concerns over getting the process right.

However, NCC said that the observations and concerns of the network operators, other stakeholders and the general public have been addressed and accommodated and knowing the importance of the exercise, the overwhelming expectations of subscribers, the regulator, was taking all necessary steps that will ensure that everybody are on the same page on the issue.