🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 09 Apr 1999 16:34:39 +0930, David Klemitz
<es00749@ozemail.com.au> wrote:

>Here in Australia the government is in the process of mandating this in
>the local and mobile markets. Does anybody have and sources of
>information (internet or otherwise) which highlight what the current
>issues are? Also I'm interested in hearing about the experiences both
>from a customer point of view as well as the success or otherwise of the
>Signalling Relay Scheme in the mobile market.



   
  
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Advertise on CWI Online 
  
Europe waits as U.K. mobiles get portable numbers  
By Jeremy Scott-Joynt 
18 January 1999  
Britain's experiment with number portability for mobile phones is
under scrutiny by the rest of the world, as the United Kingdom's
service providers and mobile users grapple with the commercial
implications of the new regime. Elsewhere in Europe plans to follow
the same path have been hit by delays: Deadlines in Germany, the
Netherlands and Austria have slipped, with operators citing
administrative and technical problems. 

From 1 January, U.K. users who have been with their mobile provider
for longer than their initial sign-up period (usually one year) have
been able to switch to another mobile network and take their existing
mobile number with them. 

"Regulators will be looking at the U.K. and asking, 'What happened
there?'" said Graham Oxby, director of marketing for Cable & Wireless
Global Mobile. 

"Once the U.K. has sorted it out, it will seem easier for everyone
else." 

As a result of the change analysts say business users will be able to
rethink their mobile strategies, while operators are already reworking
the way that they recruit and retain customers. Already one network
has set about making payments to users that switch to them. "Corporate
accounts are the most desirable, not least because once they're in,
they're often locked in," said Deborah Monas, an analyst at London
consultancy Kagan World Media Inc. "Number portability could therefore
give corporate telecoms managers a lot more bargaining power," she
added. 

And the existing emphasis on not just price but also quality of
service would be sharpened, said Monas. "Customers are going to find
it much easier to demand intelligent network services like integrated
messaging, not to mention quality of service guarantees." Michael
Dixon, head of the Leatherhead, England-based Telecommunications
Managers Association's numbering group, said number portability's main
effect would be to give telecoms managers, whose policies regarding
mobiles have tended to date to be less mature than their wireline
policies, more options. "If historically - for whatever reason - you
happen to have had your staff mobiles spread across two or three
operators, you can take the opportunity to tidy them all up into one,"
he said, adding that perhaps the majority of corporations found
themselves in such a position. That would give telecoms managers extra
leverage in negotiating with the networks to settle on a single one.
Conversely, he said, some managers feel more comfortable spreading
their business across a number of networks: "It makes them feel that
they're covered in case anything goes wrong." And for these managers,
number portability makes the spread easier to achieve. Massey, one of
BT-owned Cellnet's number portability project team, acknowledged that
by making the switch from one network to another less traumatic,
number portability will reduce resistance to such a move from those
within corporations who actually use the phones, potentially raising
churn rates. 

Cellnet, he said, is trying to retain users, both corporate and
individual, through expanded loyalty program - a tactic he expected
other operators to follow. For corporate customers, Cellnet introduced
Business First in November last year to reward those who committed to
a one-to-five year contract. The rewards include flat-rate tariffs
across the board, with discounts depending on the length of contract
and the volume of calls, rising to a maximum of 27% for a spend of
�10,000 ($16,400) per month or more on a five-year contract. For
individual customers, the company introduced its First Cellnet program
in July last year, "consciously ahead of number portability," which
also rewards customers agreeing to stay with the network with tariff
discounts. 

"Of 4 million users, 1 million have signed up and 80% of them have
agreed to longer contracts," said Cellnet's Massey. Cellnet's churn
during the six-month period covered by First, he said, had declined
from 31.5% to 28.5% compared with the previous year. Another effect -
albeit one that impacts on the U.K. market more than some others -
could be a reduction of the high handset subsidies. According to
Parantha Narendra, a mobile market consultant with London-based Ovum
Ltd., the most likely personal customers to switch will be the highly
sought-after high-spending users. "It takes 18 months to recoup the
cost of a new subscriber, and if the most valuable customers can move,
extra pressure will be put on handset subsidies," he said. "The
networks privately say they wish they hadn't taken that route, and
they'd love to lose it." 

Anna Cloake, director of communications at Borehamwood, England-based
mobile operator One 2 One, admitted that in the long term a
rebalancing of the high subsidies/high tariff structure is possible.
But, she pointed out, subsidies were already dropping - not because
customers are paying more, but because manufacturers are charging
less. "It's down to �100 to �200 now," she said. 

In response to number portability, One 2 One is enticing individuals
with a transfer fee of �25 to �100, depending on which tariff package
they choose. Similarly, discounts and incentives would be offered to
corporate users, to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Europe
still waiting 

Elsewhere in Europe mobile users are still waiting for portability. In
Germany, the regulator, the Regulierungsbehorde, initially set 1
January 2000 as the start date for both mobile and wireline number
portability. 

"The principle that you can port your number is important," said Hugen
Tobler, a spokesman for the regulator. But, he added, the networks'
insistence that their billing and switching systems needed more time
to adapt meant that "in practice I fear it won't happen" until much
later in the year. 

The Netherlands, according to Mohamed Nasroullah, head of numbering
and security for the Directorate General of Posts and Telecoms, had
aimed to start number portability on the same day as the United
Kingdom. "It is a license obligation," he said. "But the
administrative difficulties, and the problems of adapting the
networks, means that availability is delayed until 1 April." 

For Austrian users, the expected start date of 1 January 2000 looks
set for at least a year's delay following upheaval at Telekom Austria.
"We agreed the date with all the operators," said one senior official
in the Ministry of Public Planning and Transport, "but then Telekom
Austria changed their mind." 

France, Spain, Italy have no plans to introduce mobile number
portability. 
 

Information : info@total.emap.com URL : http://www.totaltele.com 


� EMAP Media 1999  

>One specific question is , in the UK can you port any mobile number or
>is there a specific number range that customers have to buy into ?

Mobile Number Portability Fallout Leads to Tariff Confusion
By Vanessa Clark
07 April 1999   
Three months after the implementation of mobile number portability
(MNP) in the U.K., the first cracks are beginning to show with the
emergence of a convoluted and confusing tariffing situation.

The problem doesn't affect mobile subcribers themselves, but rather
those calling their phones from a fixed line. The cost of calling each
of the U.K.'s four cellular networks varies considerably. So what
happens when a subscriber to one cellular network moves to another and
takes their number with them? Does a phone call to the subscriber get
charged at the old network's rate, or the new one?

Answer: The old one.The number maybe mobile but the incoming tariff
isn't.

Which means that there is little incentive for mobile operators to
compete for customers on the basis of the cost of incoming calls.

A spokesman for the U.K. regulator, the Office of Telecommunications,
admitted the situation was "not ideal", but said that it was a
by-product of the way that MNP had been implemented in the U.K.

Using a process known as 'tromboning', calls from a BT line to a
ported number first go to the original mobile operator that had the
number assigned to it. If this network recognizes that the number has
been ported it redirects the call towards the new operator's network.
This is the "simplest, cheapest and fastest way," of implementing MNP
said the Oftel spokesman, who claimed the U.K. is the first country in
the world to implement MNP.

Oftel figures show that currently more users are porting from Vodafone
and Cellnet to Orange and One2One - One2One claim to be gaining five
customers for every one lost - so this situation actually benefits
callers as under the new calling rates, to take effect at the end of
the month, it will be cheaper to phone Vodafone and Cellnet than
One2One or Orange.

BT and the two bigger mobile operators, Vodafone and Cellnet, reviewed
these prices in response to to a demand from the U.K. antitrust body,
the Mergers and Monopolies Commission. But Orange and One2One did not
reduce the amount they charge for receiving calls, to Oftel's
surprize: "We expected Orange and One2One to reduce costs in line with
BT," admitted an Oftel spokesman.

It's "an awful mess," according to Steve Thorpe, membership services
manager of the U.K.'s Telecommunications Users Association (TUA).
"It's a maze," he said, " and someone has to get to the bottom of
this."

The TUA's preferred solution would be the emergence of a flat rate for
calls to all the mobile networks.

"It's smoke-filled rooms time" for Oftel, said Richard Cox, principal
at Mandarin Technologies. "They have to hammer out something." 
 





Robert Bozinovski

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