In November, the Ministry of Justice registered an order of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection, which lets set up a new service: cell phone numbers transferring in case of mobile network operator change. The document entered into force on November 21 this year. However, the service will be available only in 2013.
This practice is nothing new in the world, tells The Day Iryna Brodianska, senior solution architect at Ericsson (in fact, their products technically help implement the transfer service without change of number). According to her, citizens of 65 countries have been freely using the opportunity to change the mobile network operator while keeping the same number for the last 10 years. In Ukraine, this issue has been discussed for a long time. “These ideas were voiced for the first time in 2006 and 2007. But only in 2010, or even in 2011, they were shaped into more mature projects,” tells the expert to The Day. The first attempts to bring the corresponding draft law before the Verkhovna Rada happened back in 2010. But it became possible to complete the project only in 2012.
The expert is convinced that the possibility of free transfer between operators can be viewed as a mechanism of creation of healthy competitive environment on the communications market. “This option makes operators pay more attention to the quality of service and loyalty of customers. This is a good driver for marketing,” Borodianska comments.
This initiative will definitely become an advantage for mobile network users. But what about operators? There has been no loud criticism of the innovation from operators in mass media. Market participants understand that this is unavoidable, Borodianska says. However, she stresses that this service will lead to operators’ additional expenses for technical implementation as it will require the change of call routing. “If earlier it was clear which operator the call should be sent to from the first three digits of the phone number, now a lot of technical issues arise,” Borodianska notes. However, the innovation opens new opportunities in attracting customers for operators.
The expert cannot say how much this “additional option” will cost the business. It is yet unclear whether the burden of financing the new service will be put on operators’ shoulders, or the state will help with financing, or even customers’ funds will be involved into the new system implementation. “This process was organized in different ways in different countries. Usually, business and the state share the expenses.”
The experts cannot say how many Ukrainians would like to use the option of changing the mobile network operation while keeping the number. Neither can the state or the telecommunications business itself. So far there has been no official research of the market concerning this matter. So, at the moment we can only make an estimate, judging from the global experience. In general, from 5 to 10 percent of mobile network customers want to use this service immediately, and in Ukraine it equals to 2.5-5 million SIM cards.
However, there is one more little aspect that might seriously influence the statistics: the cost of transfer. “Everything depends on whether the service will require payment or not. Again, this varies in different countries. In some the payment is tiny, and in others it comes to a considerable sum. For example, in the EU countries this service is free, but at the same time, there is an established term, during which a customer has to remain ‘loyal’ to the operators. It is not yet known which way will be chosen in Ukraine. Of course, if the fee is too high, the number of customers who will want to use the service will be small,” Borodianska sums up.
Let us remind that at the end of November, after the abovementioned order appeared, telecommunications market experts foresaw that the customers will be able to change mobile network operator an unlimited number of times, but they will be charged. And the experts even named a sum; they said this service would cost 40 hryvnias, at the level of an average monthly mobile communications bill of a Ukrainian customer.
