In 2014 the Russian cellular subscribers got rid of the “mobile slavery” and had the opportunity to change their operator number. As it turned out, “slavery” was not too excited users, and even the most modest predictions, claiming that the service will use about 10% of subscribers did not materialize.
For more than a year and a half of existence of the service of number porting (MNP) it tried to use about 2,26 million subscribers, stated on the website of the Central research telecommunication Institute (ZNIIS), which is the operator of the database of ported numbers. One of them was successfully transferred 1,59 million or 0.67% of the all active SIM cards in Russia (which, according to AC&M Consulting, as of 31 March there were 238 million).
Almost every third request was unmet. This is due, primarily, to low customer awareness, as well as obstacles in the way of users when changing operator. For example, the cause of failure in the transfer room can be a mistake in writing the address of the subscriber or fictitious debt, formed after adjustments of write-offs. Finally, after seeing a request for transfer, the operator provides the subscriber with an impressive discount on communication services, and many give up at this stage.
At the beginning of the provision of MNP operators tried not to publicize this opportunity — after all, the transition can happen not only to them, but from them. However, later they started using MNP as a marketing tool and to consciously attract “defectors” selling smartphones at almost cost price or offering locked smartphones running only with the SIM card of a particular network operator.
The largest share is transferred at the moment of the rooms falls on Moscow and the Moscow region — 21% of the total number, as well as Saint-Petersburg and the region is 8%. This is due to high population density in these regions, as well as a fairly high activity of subscribers. In the remaining subjects of the Russian Federation significantly less subscribers availing the MNP service. So, in the Sverdlovsk region accounts for 4.2% of the total number of ported numbers, the Republic of Tatarstan — 2,8%, Primorsky Krai — 1,02%.
Interestingly, all operators declare positive dynamics of MNP, claiming that they get more people than leaves. In fact, in different months, the balance is changing, and overall subscriber base of operators unchanged since the quality and the prices all players today are about the same.
