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Prevailing pandemic disruptions are to be blamed
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Public consultation phase done and dusted
Oshadha Senanayake[/caption]
Speaking to us, Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) Director General Oshada Senanayake said that due to the prevailing Covid-19 situation in the country, the date of enabling this service to the market will be delayed until the end of this year.
“Due to Covid-19 barriers, implementation has been delayed towards the end of this year. We just have to get the legal framework done in accordance with the regulations required for the number portability facility implementation,” Senanayake said.
Adding to that, he said that despite lockdowns and other barriers in Sri Lanka, the plan is to release it as soon as possible to the market. ”Amidst these barriers, we have made progress, for example we were able to finish the public consultation phase,” he added.
Accordingly, the public consultation paper, which is a formality arrangement, was released in January to which TRCSL started receiving feedback from mid-February onwards.
Speaking to us in January, Senanayake mentioned that the necessary technical-side work was being done at that moment while interconnecting rate methods and systems were pending to be completed.
“This is something the consumers have wanted for years. So it’s better late than never because all other countries have gone forward with these long years back. This will enable a lot more autonomy to decide what they want, irrespective of the service provider. With this, consumers can switch to any service provider at any moment,” he added
All our attempts to reach telecommunication service providers proved futile as they asked more time to issue their statements.
However, according to Senanayake, the toughest part was getting the consent of all the mobile service providers.
“All telecommunication (telco) providers have already agreed in principle. In fact last year, in the last quarter of 2020, they published their own statements that they are looking forward to collaborating on this initiative.”
Dialog Axiata PLC welcomed the move, issuing a statement shortly after the announcement of the number portability system.
Dialog noted that it first proposed in July 2008 the initiation of a roadmap to alleviate consumer choice bottlenecks including number portability, and that it believes the paradigm that maximising consumer choice would result in the enhancement and development of the industry overall, resulting in benefits to all service providers and their customers.
“Dialog is honoured by the trust placed in the brand and its services by over 15 million Sri Lankan consumers. The success and growth of the company would not have been possible if not for our customers exercising their choice. Open competition and customer choice is at the root of our success and is a paradigm we deeply respect. Advanced technologies enable not only a suite of advanced facilities, but also the freedom of consumers to choose the best,” Dialog Director/Group Chief Executive Supun Weerasinghe stated at that point.
While Sri Lanka’s telecommunications market has been recognised globally for its affordability and quality of services as well as state-of-the-art technology and advanced facilities, enabling the portability of mobile and fixed numbers across networks has not been implemented to date.
“We are very happy to see the TRCSL moving forward with the next steps in the liberalisation of our industry and we congratulate the TRCSL for initiating the process of implementing number portability in Sri Lanka. Dialog is also optimistic that the TRCSL will move forward swiftly with other similar enablers of consumer choice,” Weerasinghe added.
Number portability, which enables the switching of mobile and fixed line numbers across competing service providers, is a customer facility widely practised internationally and is a key facet of a liberalised telecommunications market.
This service was introduced as early as in the mid-1990s in Hong Kong, the US, Canada, and Europe while also including several developed Asian countries such as Singapore in 1997 and later Pakistan in the year 2006.
Given its presence in the market for many years, it is clear that this type of service is hardly a new feature in the telecom industry. As of today, the number portability has been adopted in more than 60 developed countries with mature telecom markets.
Further, according to a report analysis with the introduction of mobile number portability, the government benefits immensely in terms of net gain to a country’s economy. For example, the net present value for Hong Kong’s economy ranged between HK $ 769 million to over HK $ 1,396 million for the first 10 years from its first implementation in 1999.
Secondly, it enhances fair competition among telecommunication operators and improves customer service quality. For instance, they will have an easier time of penetrating the market, preventing monopolies of existing service providers and in turn enhances service quality.
Finally, another advantage would be that this facility creates new opportunities and improves the customer’s experience. For example, if the consumers are not satisfied with the operators’ services and schemes, they don’t need to give up their mobile number on changing service providers nor inform everyone about the change in their number.
However, by this facility the government may not know how many customers are for which operator and it would be harder to keep track with constant updates from time to time.
The implementation is a very high risk due to the intense tariff that could take place along with incentive competition that can affect the industry’s ability to reinvest in service improvements, such as for mobile operators, the competition may become too challenging to survive and also result it being very hard to keep their customers’ loyalties to a longer period of time.