Disqus
MNP (Mobile Number Portability) on the Isle of Man (a little Island that’s somewhere between Great Britain and Ireland) is very fast indeed – if I said to you as little as 10 minutes to swap Operators, what would you say?! That realistically opens the possibility to go in to an Operator shop, and walk out with your number ported. Talk about convenient!
Of course, MNP used to be the bain of the Mobile Industry – globally, and also in my local reference market, the UK. Not so very long ago, it took a weeks or even a month to get things swapped over, with no indication of when your porting might happen, and frequent problems. I’ve cunningly avoided this for years by sticking with same Operator (!), but that’s not really a solution. In recent years in the UK, the porting process was forced down to 48hrs by regulator intervention, but because Isle of Man doesn’t operate under these same laws, it can be done (and typically is) much faster.
There are three Operators you can choose from – Manx Telecom (subsidiary of O2), Sure (subsidiary of C&W), and Wire 9 – so it’s not like its a simple back-and-forth between two Operators – there’s real competition here.
Interestingly, the Isle of Man is often used by O2 as a testbed for it’s new technologies, on the basis that it’s a self-contained entity, and hence a network-wide change can be made easily – for example the mobile broadband rollouts have variously passed through the Manx testbed first of all. Whether MNP got the same treatment I don’t know, but I want to be able to port my Mobile number whilst doing the shopping too! Gimme gimme gimme!
[Original story via: mobilenewscwp.co.uk / Image via: Wikipedia]
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
-
James_04494856414376980174
-
Rob
