What is the significance of “number portability”?

For domestic users, "number portability" is not a new term. As early as 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched a pilot project in Tianjin and Hainan, and added three provinces, including Jiangxi, Hubei and Yunnan, in 2014. Although the actual number of users who have ported their numbers is not large, this does not affect the attention of users in many other provinces. Coupled with the exaggeration of some media, in the eyes of some users, the full implementation of "number portability" means that they can change operators at any time and enjoy the best prices and services at any time.

To this end, on March 6 this year, Luo Wen, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in an interview that the work of "number portability" has been actively promoted, but due to technical problems, it will take at least until 2020 to achieve nationwide implementation. According to the "13th Five-Year Plan Outline" document of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it is clearly stated that the "number portability" service will be realized nationwide in 2020.

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Quality and experience converge, the soil for "number portability" is not fertile in China

Why do users want to "port their number"? Apart from some special reasons and strong dissatisfaction with customer service personnel, most users are attracted by the price or network quality of other operators. But the question is, if the price and network quality of various telecom operators are basically the same, will users still be motivated to "port their number"?

The reason why "number portability" is in full swing in the United States and other countries is that there is a certain "difference" between operators. Some operators have good network quality, but charge higher fees; some operators have poor network quality, but charge lower fees; some operators have services in the user's living area, while others do not. These are all reasons to promote users to "port their numbers" and find an operator that suits them. In China, under the competition and the policy requirements of "speeding up and reducing fees", all operators are building networks across the country, working hard to improve the quality of the network, and making the fees continue to drop. This makes it difficult for users who want to "port their numbers" to choose under the current situation of almost no difference.

In addition, the widespread use of dual-SIM dual-standby mobile phones in China has also become an obstacle to the large-scale development of "number portability". In recent years, operators have promoted the second card slot strategy, that is, they no longer expect users to change their numbers (numbers currently play an identity authentication role), but instead seize the second card slot to promote users to use their own network services. Since they are not related to the number, the services in the second card slot can be changed at any time, which also weakens the motivation of users to "port their numbers". Relatively speaking, in countries such as the United States, it is more expensive to keep a number, so users are reluctant to have two numbers, and would rather transfer the main number between operators.

“Number Portability” will promote the upgrade of operators’ services

The improvement of services is always accompanied by competition, and the same is true for telecom operators. Although the soil for "number portability" in my country is not fertile, no operator will take it lightly. After all, the high degree of freedom of users to switch between operators is an opportunity and a challenge, especially in an era when pure new users are scarce and the competition for existing users has begun. The author predicts that the changes brought to operators by the full "number portability" will include the following three aspects.

First, differentiated price competition will be reflected. If the price is lowered to the lowest level in exchange for users' "job-hopping", the ultimate result is that none of the operators will benefit. Either the existing users will benefit together, or they will "job-hop" on a large scale (the new packages will not be open to existing users). The balance of competition is to prevent such a situation from happening, and the relevant competent authorities will not allow such a situation to happen. Therefore, the so-called price competition is differentiated price competition, for example, I have Tencent's *** traffic, and you have Youku's *** traffic, etc.

Secondly, there will be more ways to bind users. "Job-hopping" only allows users to get packages from other operators, but gives up various other benefits of the current operator. Therefore, each operator will inevitably introduce a series of long-term incentive measures to bind users, just like the various means used by companies to retain outstanding employees. For example, more users with high VIP and high Internet age will be injected into the original membership system. In addition to being able to obtain the services of the operator, they can also obtain cross-services, such as membership cards of other merchants. This raises the threshold for users to "job-hop".

The first is that operators will strive to further lower the threshold for network switching. The early pilot proved that the network switching process is cumbersome, requiring users to go to the business halls of two operators to handle the transfer out and transfer in respectively, and to change SIM cards, and there will be network interruption time. This is still a big gap compared with the online one-click network switching that users expect. Therefore, operators with a small number of users may further reduce the threshold for network switching, including promoting the widespread use of eSIM cards or soft SIM cards in terminals, establishing platforms, etc., so as to ensure the realization of one-click network switching and obtain a considerable number of users from strong operators.