NEW YORK-The United Kingdom started off 1999 with a bang, becoming the first country to
implement local number portability for wireless telephony customers.
All four cellular operators-Orange plc,
Vodafone Group plc, Cellnet and One 2 One-had agreed to license amendments in the fall of 1997 requiring them to
provide number portability starting Jan 1, 1999.
“This will encourage much more intense competition in the
mobile market as the four companies fight to win and retain customers. In the end, the winner will be the
customer,” said David Edmonds, U.K. Director General of Telecommunications.
Scarcity of available
spectrum has limited new carrier entrants into the mobile telephony marketplace in the United Kingdom, so removal of
as many other barriers to competition as possible is important, said Richard Bayliss, an analyst for Tarifica
UK.
Customer surveys conducted by the U.K. Office of Telecommunications, known as Oftel, indicated business
users consider the necessity of changing phone numbers the biggest impediment to changing wireless service providers.
According to the surveys, some 96 percent of corporate subscribers would be willing to switch carriers once number
portability is available. By comparison, only 41 percent of such customers surveyed said they would change providers
if they couldn’t take their old phone numbers to the new carrier.
“The most immediate impact of number
portability should be the easy migration of analog customers who wish to move to a digital network,” Bayliss
said.
Nevertheless, he cautioned number portability likely will increase churn. Citing Oftel statistics for the third
quarter of 1998, Bayliss added, “percentage-wise, the two newer operators-Orange and One 2 One-are letting
fewer customers slip out the back door as new customers are coming in the front, a sign that they are providing services
customers want.”
However, he noted One 2 One declined to disclose its churn rates for that quarter. Cellnet
reported churn at 28.5 percent, Vodafone at about 20 percent and Orange at 18.5 percent.
Orange said it “has
been supporting the idea of mobile number portability for the last three years and is looking forward to welcoming
customers who want to bring their number from another network.
“The transfer of your existing number from
your old network to Orange will take a minimum of three weeks … Alternatively, you can join Orange and receive a
temporary number immediately, and your existing number will be transferred to your Orange phone after a minimum of
three weeks.”
Similarly, One 2 One said it has developed an “in-store transfer process” so a new
customer can buy and use one of its mobile phones until the transfer of his or her old number takes
place.
“The introduction of U.K. number portability (is a) change that will remove the main barriers to
purchase by customers who previously were [dissatisfied] with their network but did not want to change their mobile
number,” One 2 One said.
The carriers will be permitted to charge customers to cover the cost of transferring
their phone numbers to another service provider. Oftel said it doesn’t expect this to amount to more than a one-time
charge of about $41.
“We’ve had long and often tough negotiations with the operators about how quickly the
new arrangements could be brought in,” Don Cruickshank, then U.K. Director General of Telecommunications,
said in October 1997 when he announced the agreement for number portability starting on New Year’s Day
1999.
“The target is not easy, but all four operators are now signed up and accept that the technical and
administrative arrangements can be put in place by the target date.”
