SMS Text News supports 3UK's demand for 2 hour number portability
So I was on a conference call with Kevin Russell, CEO of 3UK, not a moment ago. The subject was number portability and just how dire the situation is here in the UK.
Currently, if you’d like to port your mobile number to another operator, there are quite a few idiot processes you need to go through.
1. Find an operator that you want to swap to. Let’s assume it’s 3UK in this case.
2. Work out the service plan and handset you want with 3UK. That’s the easy step because you generally have pretty well trained 3UK staff in their shops, able to help.
3. Agree the deal and formally get yourself a 3UK contract.
4. Now, want to port your existing number? Phone up your other operator and ask for the porting code.
This is where the arse begins. You need to be very firm with the operator, as they’ll do absolutely everything in their power to try and keep you as a customer. Half price line rental, more texts, more minutes, a new handset, the whole shebang.
5. Having finally convinced your existing operator that you want to leave, you’ll get your transfer code in about 7 days. SEVEN days. By post, usually. Ridiculous.
So you now have a shiny new handset from 3UK that you don’t-really-want-to-use-yet, because it’s not using your ‘own’ number. Not for seven days.
This whole process really puts consumers off porting. That’s bad news if you’re 3UK, wanting to boost your subscriber numbers in the face of the Vodafone goliaths, trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to switch.
But you know, it doesn’t have to be this annoying. In Australia, you can port your number within 2 hours. As Kevin just commented, “By the end of your lunch, your number will be ported,”. It’s the same in Hong Kong, 2 hours. Why SEVEN days here in the UK? No reason. No particular reason, other than, well, it’s good business for the incumbent operators to annoy customers into avoiding porting.
There’s a psychological issue in play. You might walk into a 3UK store brimming with anger at your treatment by o2. We consumers are a flakey bunch. You might have been on the phone to o2 demanding to be given extra messages in your price plan, ‘or I’ll leave,’ or you might be one of the poor-second-cousins trying to get o2 to give you un-metered data. The customer services advisor, knowing your game, will flatly refuse your demands.
So you’re brimming with anger and you get a deal sorted out at 3UK. Then the helpful chap tells you that there’s a week’s delay to port your number. Now, the deflation.
The anger begins to slowly disappear when you face the prospect of having to wait that time.
But if the store chap told you, ‘Right sir, it’ll be sorted in 2 hours,’ you’ll be yelling ‘good riddance’ with a lot of ‘HAH!’ exclamations over your lunch whilst you wait for the port to complete.
Kevin, like me, believes that there’s a fundamental failure in the marketplace. There is absolutely no need for this archaic approach. The killer point in the process, he reckons, is having to ask permission to port your number from your existing operator. That’s when the customer services team can go into overdrive and do everything they can to win-you-back. I agree. It’s ridiculous that you should have to ask permission to obtain your transfer. You should be able to just make it happen.
Or your transfer code should be sat there on your operator’s web login, or you should be able to text ‘TRANSFER’ and get your code back right away.
3UK are pushing Ofcom, the UK regulator, to do something. But you know how fast Ofcom work. Snail’s pace. It’s back to Yes Prime Minister and Humphrey. Yes, sir, yes, in the fullness of time, after the proper consultative processes and committees have reported back.
Kevin reckons we might have movement in 2009 — and perhaps, just perhaps, Ofcom might move to porting within 24 hours. But, the bad news for us number-freedom-cheerleaders is that Kevin believes it may well take another 3-4 years for consumer awareness to catch up. So we’re talking ages. AGES.
The porting issue leads to many more consumers adopting secondary handsets. Me included. My Three handset is my secondary one, for example, T-Mobile is primary. Partially, *partially* because I haven’t bothered to port my number. Even to me, a geek-beyond-geek, the seven day process is ugly and a total turn off.
The more secondary handsets you have, the more imbalance in the network. You might receive calls on your primary handset and make calls on your secondary handset. Ergo your operator — 3UK in this example — is having to stump up additional termination fees — £50m last year. Of course, there’s going to be a slight balance issue anyway because of the difference in customer bases.
Just to give a perspective on how critical porting can be to subscriber acquisition — in Australia in 2006, 43% of new subscribers to 3AUS joined by porting their number. In the UK in 2006? 10%.
Making it easier to port wouldn’t just be of benefit to Three. It’d be very useful for the bigger operators pinching customers from each other.
Leaving number porting to take seven days, as Kevin commented, ‘ain’t smart competition policy.’ It’s not. Indeed, Kevin explained that in private conversations with other UK operators, he’s received very positive feedback to the concept of 2 hour porting. How many of them are actually interested in implementing this… well… you can tell by how fast Ofcom isn’t moving that it is going to take y e a r s. So I was on a conference call with Kevin Russell, CEO of 3UK, not a moment ago. The subject was number portability and just how dire the situation is here in the UK.
Currently, if you’d like to port your mobile number to another operator, there are quite a few idiot processes you need to go through.
1. Find an operator that you want to swap to. Let’s assume it’s 3UK in this case.
2. Work out the service plan and handset you want with 3UK. That’s the easy step because you generally have pretty well trained 3UK staff in their shops, able to help.
3. Agree the deal and formally get yourself a 3UK contract.
4. Now, want to port your existing number? Phone up your other operator and ask for the porting code.
This is where the arse begins. You need to be very firm with the operator, as they’ll do absolutely everything in their power to try and keep you as a customer. Half price line rental, more texts, more minutes, a new handset, the whole shebang.
5. Having finally convinced your existing operator that you want to leave, you’ll get your transfer code in about 7 days. SEVEN days. By post, usually. Ridiculous.
So you now have a shiny new handset from 3UK that you don’t-really-want-to-use-yet, because it’s not using your ‘own’ number. Not for seven days.
This whole mind numbing process really puts consumers off porting. That’s bad news if you’re 3UK, wanting to boost your subscriber numbers in the face of the Vodafone goliaths, trying to make it as difficult as possible for people to switch.
But you know, it doesn’t have to be this annoying. In Australia, you can port your number within 2 hours. As Kevin just commented, “By the end of your lunch, your number will be ported,”. It’s the same in Hong Kong, 2 hours. Why SEVEN days here in the UK? No reason. No particular reason, other than, well, it’s good business for the incumbent operators to annoy customers into avoiding porting.
There’s a psychological issue in play. You might walk into a 3UK store brimming with anger at your treatment by o2. We consumers are a flakey bunch. You might have been on the phone to o2 demanding to be given extra messages in your price plan, ‘or I’ll leave,’ or you might be one of the poor-second-cousins trying to get o2 to give you unmetered data. The customer services advisor, knowing your game, will flatly refuse your demands.
So you’re brimming with anger and you get a deal sorted out at 3UK. Then the helpful chap tells you that there’s a week’s delay to port your number. Now the deflation.
The anger begins to slowly disappear when you face the prospect of having to wait that time.
But if the store chap told you, ‘Right sir, it’ll be sorted in 2 hours,’ you’ll be yelling ‘good riddance’ with a lot of ‘HAH!’ exclamations over your lunch whilst you wait for the port to complete.
Kevin, like me, believes that there’s a fundamental failure in the marketplace. There is absolutely no need for this archaic approach. The killer point in the process, he reckons, is having to ask permission to port your number from your existing operator. That’s when the customer services team can go into overdrive and do everything they can to win-you-back. I agree. It’s ridiculous that you should have to ask permission to obtain your transfer. You should be able to just make it happen.
Or your transfer code should be sat there on your operator’s web login, or you should be able to text ‘TRANSFER’ and get your code back right away.
3UK are pushing Ofcom, the UK regulator, to do something. But you know how fast Ofcom work. Snail’s pace. It’s back to Yes Prime Minister and Humphrey. Yes, sir, yes, in the fullness of time, after the proper consultative processes and committees have reported back.
Kevin reckons we might have movement in 2009 — and perhaps, just perhaps, Ofcom might move to porting within 24 hours. But, the bad news for us number-freedom-cheerleaders is that Kevin believes it may well take another 3-4 years for consumer awareness to catch up. So we’re talking ages. AGES.
The porting issue leads to many more consumers adopting secondary handsets. Me included. My Three handset is my secondary one, for example, T-Mobile is primary. Partially, *partially* because I haven’t bothered to port my number. Even to me, a geek-beyond-geek, the seven day process is ugly and a total turn off.
The more secondary handsets you have, the more inbalance in the network. You might receive calls on your primary handset and make calls on your secondary handset. Ergo your operator — 3UK in this example — is having to stump up additional termination fees — £50m last year. Of course, there’s going to be a slight balance issue anyway because of the difference in customer bases.
Just to give a perspective on how critical porting can be to subscriber acquisition — in Australia in 2006, 43% of new subscribers to 3AUS joined by porting their number. In the UK in 2006? 10%.
Making it easier to port wouldn’t just be of benefit to Three. It’d be very useful for the bigger operators pinching customers from each other.
Leaving number porting to take seven days, as Kevin commented, ‘ain’t smart competition policy.’ It’s not. Indeed, Kevin explained that in private conversations with other UK operators, he’s received very positive feedback to the concept of 2 hour porting. How many of them are actually interested in implementing this… well… you can tell by how fast Ofcom isn’t moving that it is going to take y e a r s.
