The mobile number portability activities carried out by mobile telecommunications operators in the country reduced by 75 percent in December last year.
The industry recorded a total of 23,249 outgoing porting activities in November last year which drastically reduced to 5,794 in December 2020, data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission has shown.
Also, data on the incoming porting activities indicated that 16,342 incoming porting activities were recorded in November 2020, which reduced to 4,085 in the following month.
Mobile number portability was introduced by the NCC in 2013 to encourage competition and ensure that consumers continue to enjoy quality service on all the mobile networks.
Porting allows subscribers to leave their network provider to another preferred network without changing their phone numbers.
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This reduced porting activities could be linked to the suspension of porting activities, sale and registration of new SIM cards by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, in early December.
The suspension was ordered to allow the NCC to carry out an audit of SIM card registration records and verify compliance by network operators with the standards and requirements for SIM registration.
However, on December 31, 2020, the government finally bowed to pressure from Nigerians as it announced the lifting of the suspension order on the replacement of SIM cards and related activities.
The Director, Public Affairs at NCC, Dr Ikechukwu Adinde, who made the announcement, said the lifting of the ban was on the condition that only persons that have enrolled and obtained the National Identification Number (NIN) could replace lost SIM cards.
Analyses of the data showed that Airtel recorded only 4,497 incoming and ongoing porting activities in December compared to a total of 17,967 in November last year.
Also, MTN recorded only 6,586 incoming and ongoing porting activities in December compared to a total of 27,174 In November last year.
For Globacom, total incoming and ongoing porting activities in November was 5,489 which reduced to 1,481 in December 2020.
