Today, Neustar,
Inc. (NYSE: NSR), the United States’ Local Number Portability (LNP)
Administrator, released a newly commissioned white paper that compares
the number
portability systems in India and the United States. This paper is
the next installment in a series of papers looking at the importance and
complexity of the local number portability system in the United States.
Authored by W. Bruce Allen, a Professor of Business and Public Policy at
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting
professor at the Indian School of Business, the paper reviews India’s
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) system and finds that significant
differences exist between India’s model and the portability system in
the United States.
The paper evaluates the characteristics of each nation’s
telecommunications market and draws comparisons based on the
characteristics of consumer demand, the porting process itself, and the
wider communications infrastructure. The paper finds that the major
differences between the United States and India markets include: the
preponderance of prepaid services in India (versus a preference for
post-paid in the U.S.); the dominance of 2G services in India compared
to the advancements in 3G and 4G in the U.S.; the use of wireless
handsets that support multiple carriers in India, as compared to the
U.S. where services and devices are generally bundled together; and the
much higher churn rate in India as consumers switch to lower-cost plans.
Together these factors contribute to a number portability system that is
vastly different from the United States’ portability infrastructure,
where consumers place a higher value on keeping their phone numbers when
they switch service providers. Additionally, the paper finds that
India’s MNP system, which launched in January 2011, has sparked a high
volume of consumer complaints related to porting delays and rejections.
The paper concludes: “The United States and India are both large
democracies with growing telecom markets, but the factors which drive a
successful mobile number portability experience could not be more
distinct between the two countries.