Telcorum Case Study 2
Implementing "near real-time" Mobile Number Portability - an Australian experience.
The term "Mobile Number Portability (MNP)" refers to the ability of a customer to change their mobile network operator and/or service provider while retaining their current mobile number. MNP is now a key aspect of deregulation in the mobile industry. To further develop competition in the marketplace for mobile services, the formerly fixed association between a telecommunications service provider and the mobile number is being severed. Increasingly, mobile numbers are now seen by National Regulators as the property of the service subscriber, who is able to decide which service provider to use.
To date, international experience of MNP has been limited and only partially successful. It has been introduced in Hong Kong, the Netherlands and the UK in 1999, Switzerland in 2000 and most recently Australia in September 2001. However, further countries are expected to adopt MNP in the future, with Singapore already mandating a change by the end of 2003.
Prior to Australia's implementation, Hong Kong's was the most successful with a high percentage of those changing networks porting their numbers, and with porting times of 1-2 days. In contrast in the Netherlands and the UK demand has been disappointing due to long porting times (up to 28 days), significant porting out charges, complex processes and some regulatory gaps.
How successful was the introduction of MNP in Australia?
Australia's performance has been the most impressive, even though it is the only country to have implemented "near real-time" porting. The approach is a "world leader", with ports being achieved very quickly.
This "near real-time" requirement has led to the establishment of complex solution between carriers to manage the messaging between the losing mobile carrier, the gaining mobile carrier, carriage service providers and other parties that need to route calls to the ported customer. It has also meant the carriers have needed to make significant improvements to their internal operational systems. Teething problems between carriers did cause unacceptable porting delays in the early days, but these were remedied quite quickly.
However, there was no "silver bullet" which solved performance problems, rather each carrier needed to identify their particular problems and remedy each through software patches, improved systems, better shop-front staff assistance and enhanced communications with other carriers and customers.
How can the success of MNP in Australia be judged?
Whilst MNP is about removing one significant barrier to churn and competition, increased churn does not necessarily mean an increase in the level of competition. Rather the success of MNP can be seen from the improved customer retention strategies introduced by the carriers through special pricing deals, bundling of services and other promotions. MNP has also forced carriers in Australia to work harder to retain customers by improving customer service. Furthermore to attract new or ported customers, carriers have had to improve the whole acquisition experience. This meant adapting internal operational systems to cope with MNP but also putting in place applications at the point of sale that make porting to a new carrier quick and seamless.
The operational and point of sales systems implemented by carriers to manage the MNP porting process needed to examine the process from the customers' perspective. Although, MNP involved many technical and network issue for carriers it was critical not to underestimate the importance and complexities related to the operational systems aspects of the MNP solution. Consequently, many process issues were taken into account, these included:
- Whether customer procedures were simple to follow and how well customers were informed;
- For what reasons and for how long the porting process could be blocked;
- Which and how many numbers a customer could port per changeover;
- How limited time scales were for the preparation of the porting;
- Whether pre-paid subscribers would be able to port their numbers to another network;
- How value added service such as SMS, Voice Mail, Fax and Caller Line Identification would be handled when a number is ported; and
- How limited would the disruption be during the actual changeover.
Whitesmiths were sub-contracted by both Optus and its prime systems integrator, IBM GSA, to develop and implement the MNP capabilities in Optus. Whitesmiths implemented Telcorum Sales Channel, an advanced web based user application which supports the acquisition of mobile subscribers and the provision of mobile number portability (MNP). The project involved Whitesmiths enhancing and modifying its existing customer acquisition system and back-end mediation platforms to support the system changes required for MNP.
Telcorum Sales Channel is a powerful web application that allows the hundreds of Optus mobile phone dealers throughout Australia to quickly provision mobile services for current and new subscribers. This software application runs from an application server, accessed through a standard web browser. It enables mobile network dealers to quickly and easily capture customer account, service and mobile number portability details and store these details in a central database.
Telcorum Sales Channel also captures information for credit assessment and service provisioning, enabling the dealer to activate customers to additional value-added services on the spot, including voicemail, short message service (SMS), fax and data. The system also enables carriers to quickly and easily access relevant and important customer information, which will increase customer satisfaction.
"Telcorum Sales Channel enables carriers to provide a seamless, virtually instantaneous transition for new and ported subscribers. Once subscribers are connected to the network, they continue to benefit from swift dealer response to any additional services they wish to have modified or cancelled - all made possible by the system."
Whitesmiths Managing Director John O'Brien said.
