THE CONSEQUENCES OF MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY IN KENYA AND ITS USAGE FACTORS

Abstract

After so much waiting, heightened tariff wars and lack of information on the part of consumers about the service, Mobile Number Portability was finally implemented in Kenya on 1s t April 2011 making Kenya one of the 63 countries in the world to implement the service. This paper examines the consequences that the introduction of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Kenya will have on the Kenyan mobile telephony industry and the consumers, as well as the factors that affect its usage. An in depth review of literature on Mobile Number Portability implementation in other countries was carried out. It was evident from many researches conducted in this area, that there is a correlation between service efficiency, porting speed, the intensity of competition in the market ,marketing campaigns, market maturity, mobile phone subsidies, contractual obligations, customer base construct and customer usage level with intensity of competition in the market being the most influential. It was also established that despite customer losing some value added services by the previous service provider, credit balance and all contacts saved in their SIM cards, MNP increases competition in the mobile industry in addition to benefiting the mobile consumers due to reduction of switching costs with four types of benefits being identified: Type 1A (benefits available to Users who switch even without MNP- avoided costs of number change), Type 1B (benefits available to users who only switch with MNP-benefits provided by the new operator), Type 2 (benefits available to all users-benefits due to stimulated competition) and Type 3 (benefits available to callers of switched numbers- avoided costs of finding changed numbers.