Mobile Number Portability in Ghana: Its Effect on Subscribers

Abstract

Telecommunication services have been recognized the world-over as an important tool for socio-economic development for a nation (Sutherland, 2007). It is one of the prime support services needed for rapid growth and modernization of various sectors of the world economy. The objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of the introduction of MNP in Ghana on subscribers. It highlights the concept of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) and its application in Ghana. However, from a consumer viewpoint, we summarize the benefits of the Mobile Number Portability system with five major themes. Firstly, the subscribers benefit from the advantages of all possible choices that resulted from the more competitive environment in the sector, it provides benefits like lower prices, higher quality and the wider range of services (Shin, 2005). Again, customers who change the operator following MNP benefit by crossing to the operator which provides the appropriate service for the expectations of them. Further, the calling subscribers don’t have to suffer to find the new numbers of her/his friends, when it is needed to communicate with them. The reality of retransferring of property rights is important, especially for special numbers (Buehler et al., 2005).To achieve the objective of this study logistic linear regression model was used to estimate the impact of Customer service, service problems, usage costs and income on switching preference of network subscribers. The regression results indicate that income of the respondents, high service problems, average service problems, the high usage cost and average usage cost are very important in determining customer intention to switch. Network operators have consequently reduced their tariff rate.

Keywords: Mobile Subscribers, Experience, Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Ghana