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Number Portability
– how to build a tailor-made NP Best Practice
Presentation by Carin Johansson, BoCa Consulting, at BIT’s world congress in
Dalian, 28th-30th August 2012;
Number Portability Best Practice

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Short presentation of BoCa Consulting
BoCa is a private owned, independent consulting
company based in Sweden
BoCa has over 70 years of experience within the IT
environment, mainly from the telecom market
BoCa has over 15 years of experience of Number
Portability related issues
BoCa supplies qualified consultancy services to the
market with focus on the following areas;
» Mobile & Fixed Number Portability (NP, MNP, FNP)
» Advanced Program & Project Management (PM)
» Corporate Development
» Process Development
» Carrier Pre-Selection (CPS)
» Number Management
» Configuration Management (CM)
» Quality Assurance (QA)

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Agenda for the presentation
What is Number portability (NP)?
Why Number Portability?
Main incentives for Number Portability
Number Portability in the world, as of August 2012
General Number Portability Best Practice
Can/should general NP Best Practice
be applied anywhere?
Build a tailor-made Number Portability Best Practice
Number Portability Best Practice

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What is number portability?
A customer can retain his/her telephone number
when he/she changes telecom operator
My Number, according to the National Numbering Plan
Number from Number to Operator
…
0705-600000 0705-699999 Tele1
0705-700000 0705-799999 Tele2
0705-800000 0705-899999 Tele1
…
My number, 0705-713464,
belongs to Tele2
My Number, after using Number Portability
Tele5 (Recipient)
My number, 0705-713464, is now with;
Tele2 (Donor)
Porting process

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Why Number Portability?
From the customer’s point of view;
» Freedom to select the telecom operator of his/her choice,
without losing the number
» Lower prices, better terms, new services & handsets, etc
» No need to inform family, friends and customers, when
changing operator
» No need to change stationeries, car stickers and other
promotion material, when an Enterprise customer is
changing operator
From a country’s point of view;
» Increase competition and customer experience
» Increase Quality of Service
» WTO, ITU, World Bank and/or EU demands

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Main incentives for NP in the world
EU
WTO
QoS
Customer experience
Customer experience

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NP in the world, as of August 2012
Fixed Number Portability was first introduced in Hong Kong in
1995, and Mobile Number Portability was first introduced in
Singapore in 1997.
By today, NP is available in 70 out of 192 UN member states,
plus some 10 different territories in the world!
NP discussions are ongoing in around 50 countries all over
the world, but mainly in Central & South America, East
Europe, Middle East and Africa.
NP in 3 large countries: India finally launched NP in January
2011. In addition to this, two other of the larges countries in
the world are planning for, and have started tests on MNP;
China and Russia.
Number Portability Best Practice

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General NP Best Practice
Centralised solution
Direct routing
One-stop-shopping process
Win-back is not allowed
Short porting duration
time (max 1 day)
Free of charge (or a
very low fee) to port
Few reasons for
rejection from Donor
OP1
OP2
OP7
OP6
OP3
OP8
OP5OP4
Distributed solution
OP1
OP2
OP7
OP6
OP3
OP8
OP5OP4 CrDb
Centralised solution
Originating
operator
network
(1)
(2)
(2a) (2b)
Indirect Routing
Donor
operator
network
Transit
operator
network
Recipient
operator
network
Calling subscriber
(A-number)
Called subscriber
(B-number)
Originating
operator
network
(2)
(1a)
Direct Routing
Donor
operator
network
Transit
operator
network
Recipient
operator
network
Calling subscriber
(A-number)
Called subscriber
(B-number)
NPDb
(1b)
CrDB
Recipient
Other
stakeholdersSubscriber
Donor
One-stop-shopping porting process
1) Order NP
2) Negotiate NP
3) Activate NP
3) Activate NP
3) Activate NP
2a) 2b)
CrDB
Recipient
Other
stakeholders
Subscriber
Donor
Two-stop-shopping porting process
2) Negotiate NP
4) Activate NP
2a) 2b)
1) Request
authorisation
4) Activate
NP
4) Activate NP
2) Order NP

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Can/should general NP Best Practice be
applied anywhere, 1?
Centralised solution?
» Only 2 Network Operators (NO)
» No other Voice Over IP providers (VOIP)
» No other telecom Service Providers (SP)
» No Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO)
Direct routing?
» Mobile-phone penetration rate is very high (more than 100%)
» NP awareness is very low
One-stop shopping process?
» There is no common national ID, hence the porting process can
not be fully automated, maybe because of the fact that;
▪ A majority of the inhabitants are expatriates

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Short porting duration time (max 1 day)?
» Main target market for NP is the Enterprise sector
Win-back is not allowed?
» Same on-net and off-net prices
» Many people already have at least 2 SIM-cards
Free of charge (or a very low fee) to port?
» Very high proportion of SIMs are pre-paid SIMs with low Average
Revenue Per User (ARPU)
Few reasons for rejection from the Donor?
» There are no credit control institutes
Can/should general NP Best Practice be
applied anywhere, 2?

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Build a tailor-made NP Best Practice, 1
1. Decide what you want to achieve with NP, focusing on;
» the Customers
» the Operators
» the Telecom Market
» the Regulatory point of view
» the Technical development
2. Go thru the list of General NP Best Practice
3. Analyse and compare some five other countries’
different NP implementations
4. Identify one country, with similar market conditions to
yours, where NP has already been introduced, in order
to leverage on their unique experiences, successes,
failures and outcome
Number Portability Best Practice

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Build a tailor-made NP Best Practice, 2
5. Adapt the outcome of the analysis done in point 1-4
to your local conditions and constraints, such as;
» Maturity of the Telecom market
» Political needs
» Regulatory environment
» Economical situation
» Security demands
6. Now you have built your own tailor-made Number
Portability Best Practice!
Conclusion:
Number Portability Best Practice is unique for each country!
And it can/should not be copied, as is, from somewhere
else, when NP shall be introduced in a new country!
Number Portability Best Practice

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Thank You for Your time and interest!
My contact information:
Carin Johansson
carin@boca.se
BoCa Consulting AB
Ostra Fornas
SE-590 33 Fornasa, Sweden
Telephone: +46 141 700 48
Mobile: +46 70 571 34 64
Skype name: cajsus
www.boca.se
Number Portability Best Practice