It will be easier for subscribers to change telecom operators

The telecom market regulator has developed rules according to which the service of changing operators while maintaining the number will be provided. It will be free and convenient for subscribers, but costly for operators. The document provides for the creation of a company that will charge private operators a fee for each call to the numbers of service users.

The National Commission, which carries out state regulation in the field of communications and information (NCRSI), at yesterday's meeting approved the draft "Regulations on the provision of services for porting a subscriber number and using a personal number." NCRSI proposes to make the service of changing the operator while maintaining the number (Mobile Number Portability; MNP) free of charge, the document says (a copy is available to Kommersant). It will be enough to send a free SMS message or fill out an application on the website of the “receiving” operator. After this, the transfer of the subscriber must be carried out within 24 hours from the moment of registration of the application for mobile operators. And for fixed-line ones (only a transition to the network of another fixed-line operator is provided) - within seven working days, while loss of communication when changing both mobile and fixed-line operators for more than three hours is unacceptable. You can change telephone companies and keep your number every 30 days. In addition, it will be possible to order a transition to a new operator from a certain date - for example, from the 1st of the next month.

The NCRSI was concerned about possible confusion - after all, the caller will not know which operator the called subscriber is using, and intranet calls in Ukraine, as a rule, are much cheaper than internet calls. Therefore, the operator who “received” the subscriber will be obliged to inform all those calling him about which network the call is being made using a voice message. Such notification is not provided for SMS and MMS messages.

The development of this document was entrusted to the regulator 2.5 years ago after the adoption of the law providing for the introduction of this service. “Finally, we have reached the finish line in this matter, I hope this service will start working soon,” said the acting director. O. Head of the NCRSI Alexander Rechkalov.

The most difficult part of implementing the MNP service is call routing - after all, the operator code (for example, “50” for MTS or “67” for Kyivstar) will no longer be an identifier of the network in which the user of the number is served. For this purpose, a centralized database will be created in Ukraine containing information about numbers transferred between operators, through which routing will be carried out. The database will have to be created at the expense of a private investor, who will be selected by the NCRSI through a competition. A state enterprise or an enterprise with a state share of more than 50% cannot become a participant in the competition. The ban was also introduced for fixed-line or mobile operators, companies controlled by them and companies that have financial obligations to the operator.

The head of the NCRSI, Petr Yatsuk, previously estimated the amount of investment in the creation of a system for providing MNP services at $10 million. However, the company that has invested such funds will have a good opportunity to recoup them - it will become the administrator of the centralized database and will have the opportunity to charge a fee for each incoming call to numbers subscribers who changed their operator while maintaining their number. The administrator himself will be able to set the amount of the fee; the NCRSI will only have the right to agree on it.

According to market participants, the Ukrainian Network Information Center (USIC) company is showing the greatest interest in the competition. Back in 2007, it created, together with the state enterprise Ukrainian State Radio Frequency Center (UGCR), a consortium to administer the MNP service. In 2010, Vladimir Oleynik, who then held the post of head of the NKRS, called the consortium a likely administrator of the number portability system. USIC General Director Yuriy Goncharuk, who is also an assistant to one of the authors of the MNP bill, Vitaly Korzh (BYuT-Batkivshchyna), told Kommersant yesterday that the decision on participation in the competition will be made by the consortium’s management after the final approval of the MNP regulations. “But I think we will—the consortium has been working a lot on this issue recently,” he said.

The Ukrainian MNP implementation system may be unique. “The fact is that within its framework, we will be the first in the world to introduce so-called personal numbers, which are assigned not to the operator, but to the subscriber,” explains Mr. Goncharuk. According to him, there is a widespread practice in the world when MNP administration is carried out directly by operators. “But our operators are not interested in such a service; it will increase competition between them and force them to change pricing. Therefore, it was decided to choose an independent administrator who will make money from this,” explains the specialist. According to his estimates, the fee charged by the administrator of the central database could be 0.01 UAH for each incoming call. According to estimates of one of the Ukrainian operators, on average 158 million incoming calls are made per day in Ukraine in the networks of GSM operators. According to operator forecasts, up to 10% of subscribers (up to 5.6 million SIM cards) will use the MNP service. Thus, the administrator of the central database with a tariff of 0.01 UAH only on Kyivstar, MTS and Astelite can earn about 58 million UAH per year.

Mobile operators call this charging principle a compromise. “Initially it was assumed that all telephone traffic would go through a centralized database, and not just calls to the numbers of subscribers who used MNP,” says a Kommersant source in the management of one of the companies. “Then the administrator’s earnings would be much higher.”

However, operators call the document unfinished. “It is unclear, for example, what to do with the balance of funds on the account of subscribers of prepaid tariffs or the debt of contract subscribers at the time of transition,” says Oleg Prozhyvalsky, director of corporate management and control of MTS-Ukraine. “Besides, in our opinion, the subscriber should simultaneously inform not only the receiving party, but also the operator from whom he intends to leave." Also, according to him, it is not entirely clear whether migration will be implemented while preserving the number between subscribers of GSM, UMTS and CDMA networks. “According to the law, we have a month to analyze the document and public discussions. Market participants will make their changes, comments and additions,” the Kyivstar press service told Kommersant.

Igor Burdyga

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 196 dated November 30, 2012, p. 1

Themes:

Mobile market

Ukrainians go to the rooms