The number of people who ported their numbers reached 9.4 million - why the porting rate was lower than expected

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently held a teleconference on the supervision of the "number portability" service, revealing that the current national "number portability" service is generally stable, the number of users applying for the service is increasing rapidly, and the "number portability" service has been provided to 9.4 million people. On July 2, the national "number portability" service supervision system was officially launched, providing strong technical support for proactively discovering violations.

"Number Portability" has been realized step by step in the expectation of consumers. In November 2010, the first batch of pilot projects of "Number Portability" were launched in Tianjin and Hainan. On November 10, 2019, the national "Number Portability" system was put into trial operation. On November 27 of the same year, the national "Number Portability" service was officially provided.

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9.4 million people switched networks. Compared with nearly 1.6 billion mobile phone users, the rate of "number portability" is not high. The rate of about 0.59% is far lower than the previous forecasts of some market institutions.

"This is normal." Independent telecom analyst Fu Liang said that number portability is a service that benefits the people, not a means of competition. The communications industry's good "number portability" is to provide good services, and the direct evaluation standard is "can be carried, the number can be transferred quickly, and it can be used well." Li Zhen, an industry research analyst at the Innovation Research Institute of Peking University Science Park, believes that "number portability" is essentially a spontaneous behavior of mobile phone users.

Why did consumers have high demands for "number portability" in the early stages, but the number portability rate was relatively low after its implementation? In this regard, Li Zhen analyzed that, on the one hand, there are still some service differences between operators; on the other hand, "number portability" may involve many links, and users face high time costs and complexity in switching networks.

Fu Liang believes that the low rate of "number portability" is also due to the operators' efforts to retain users. First, operators have begun to provide more discounts or services to old users. The longer the user has been on the network, the more discounts they get. Second, for users who may switch networks, operators have introduced retention measures. By giving away services, the value of the user's original package is increased. However, no matter what the reason is, users are the beneficiaries.

"There are two major issues that stand out since the implementation of 'number portability', and most complaints are related to these two issues," said Fu Liang. "One is whether good numbers have a price, and the other is the conditions for contract termination and payment of liquidated damages. These two issues are historical legacy issues, and are not entirely the responsibility of the operators. Third parties have been active in buying and selling good numbers, but industry policies do not recognize that good numbers have a price."

Regarding how to promote the implementation of "number portability" in the next step, Li Zhen believes that the regulatory authorities should issue corresponding normative documents to ensure that the work is carried out within a reasonable and legal scope. Users should rationally judge whether to participate in "number portability" based on their own needs. Operators should take "number portability" as an opportunity and warning to continuously improve their service quality and provide users with better and more efficient services.

At present, with the continuous acceleration of 5G construction and application popularization, and the rapid increase in 5G mobile phone users, my country's mobile communications industry will usher in greater development opportunities. "This is a good opportunity for both users and operators. Users can freely choose operators based on the different package prices and service quality of each operator. Operators will gain a stronger driving force and pay more attention to improving service quality." Li Zhen said.