The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says subscribers will not pay for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service scheduled to begin in September.
A statement titled `Nigeria Mobile Number Portability – Business Rules and Port Order Processes’ posted on NCC website indicated that only the recipient operators would pay for the service.
MNP is a facility that gives telephone subscribers the ability to retain their original Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) numbers when changing from one mobile service provider to another.
?“For the avoidance of doubt, neither the `recipient operator’ nor the `donor operators’ shall be entitled to charge subscribers for requesting to use the porting service or for porting their numbers.
“The only porting transaction charge, permitted under the Nigeria MNP business rules, will be the one levied by the central order handling system provider on the respective recipient operator for each successfully completed porting transaction.
“The successful porting transaction fee charged by the central order handling system provider will be agreed and approved by the NCC and may at the its sole discretion, be varied from time to time,’’ the commission said.
The donor operator is the mobile service provider which is losing the customers number through MNP, while the recipient operator is provider which is acquiring the customer’s number through MNP.
Also, the central order handling system provider is the provider that processed the MNP orders.
The NCC said that the central order handling system provider would issue invoices on a monthly basis to each recipient operator.
It said that such invoices would contain the volume and number of successful porting transactions completed by each operator within the billing period, multiplied by the NCC approved porting transaction fee.
The NCC urged all service providers to pay the central order handling system provider on time.
It also advised service providers to have appropriate records of porting transactions in order to satisfy the billing and audit requirements of MNP.
The providers were equally advised to avoid conflict with the central order handling system provider.
Dr. Eugene Juwah, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, has promised that MNP would become operational in September. (NAN)