We at Telecommunications Connectivity Inc. (TCI), a joint venture of DITO, Globe and Smart, support the government in making Mobile Number Portability (MNP) a success. We assure our regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that TCI is actively working on addressing the MNP “roadblocks”.
TCI has earlier anticipated some hiccups due to differences in the underlying network architecture and design of the network infrastructure used by the MSPs.
A combination of non-technical and technical issues contributed to the birth pains in the implementation of MNP. Among the technical issues that TCI has grappled with and resolved within the first two weeks of the MNP launch on September 30, 2021, include port out rejections, unique subscriber code (USC) generation, enabling portability of Virtual Number Operators (VNOs) and airtime loading.
New issues that have cropped up after the launch are nearing resolution as well. To the credit of the mobile service providers (MSPs), the respective project teams from DITO, Globe and Smart have collaborated to resolve the issues in the MNP process. A service level agreement (SLA) is also being crafted to streamline the response time governing each critical leg of the MNP process which in turn will improve customer experience and potentially address MNP hesitancy.
As for market acceptance, we believe in the paramount objective of giving mobile customers the freedom to choose their providers. The MNP supports this objective, so we are leaving it to the customers to determine if they want to change providers or not.
TCI will continue to work with the MSPs and collaborate with the regulatory bodies to ensure that the true intent of the MNP law is fully implemented and supported.