Ministry ponders policy on mobile number portability

Mobile phone users will be able to keep their numbers when switching from one service provider to another, under a policy being drafted by the Ministry of Information and Communications

Under this mobile number portability (MNP) policy, a mobile service subscriber would have the option of retaining the same number issued by a previous provider when changing to a new one.

The MNP policy will be intended to benefit customers and strengthen competition within the telecommunications sector, according to the ministry, since many customers have hesitated switching providers because it will require switching phone numbers.

Pham Hong Hai, a senior ministry official, said the MNP policy was still being studied and would not be applied soon. However, once MNP were applied, mobile phone operators would no longer own particular prefixes, and the policy would therefore reduce the quantity of idle or discarded numbers. Industry statistics suggest that the number of mobile subscribers in a country with a population of 84 million has topped 130 million, but that many of these were, in fact, duplicate or discarded numbers.

The country’s leading mobile providers, Viettel, MobiFone and VinaPhone, have been reluctant to apply the MNP policy. Together, these three State-run providers hold 90 per cent of market share.

The deputy director of military-owned service provider Viettel, Nguyen Manh Hung, backed the MNP policy in principle but said the decision needed to be made at the right time.

Hong Kong was one of the first Asian markets to apply MNP, Hung said, but it triggered a period of market saturation. Meanwhile, the development of infrastructure and 3G technology remained in a developmental stage in Viet Nam. He asked that the MNP be phased-in, applied only to newly issued numbers, rather than to all outstanding numbers. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam Mobile subscribers