NCC:
Consistent with the mandate of NCC’s Compliance Monitoring & Enforcement (CME) Department, to monitor key activities relating to the performance of all stakeholders on the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) policy and given the need to ensure a seamless porting process with strict adherence to the MNP Regulations 2014 and the Business Rules & Port Order Processes, a technical audit team carried out a comprehensive compliance audit exercise of the MNP Platform from 12th – 14th March, 2019.
The key objectives of the Committee were as follows:
- To review the level of success National Porting Clearinhouse (NPC)’s migration of the MNP Platform to its new technical partners, Porting Access Ltd;
- Conduct an in-depth review of planned and unplanned technical faults that occurred within the period under review;
- Audit ‘Validation Responses (T2) & Deactivation Responses (T4)’ which have timelines of 2 hours and 1 hour respectively for the period under review;
- Review all porting rejections by the donor to ensure that these rejections are justifiable in the context of MNP Business Rules;
- Review the current status of outstanding MNP fees owed to the NPC administrator by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs);
- Review all emergency repatriations and ‘Return to Block Operator’ transactions for the past 5 months (October, 2018 – February, 2019).
B. Key Actions Taken
Based on the findings of the audit exercise, the Commission directed Mobile Network Operators to carry out the following:
- Mobile Network Operators should ensure the fields for inputting Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) or SIM number in porting request forms are only 10 digits. In addition, MNOs should educate and train front-end staff to ensure the correct donor network and MSISDN are specified before details are sent to NPC;
- That the MNP Industry Technical Working Group will discuss and impose a 45 day port restriction period for newly activated SIM cards;
- That Mobile Network Operators henceforth strictly comply with the conditions for ‘Emergency Repatriations’ and ‘Return to Block Operator’ in line with Provisions of the MNP Business Rules, as well as the consequences for non-compliance;
- That Mobile Network Operators remove the power to carry out ‘Emergency Repatriations’ and ‘Return to Block Operator’ from their front end agents to mitigate the emerging trend of abuse of laid down processes and procedures;
In view of the relatively low amount of porting transactions, the Commission will carry out robust awareness campaigns to enlighten consumers on the availability of Mobile Number Portability.