"US operators charge subscribers only about 25 cents per month for providing number portability"

Number portability was pioneered by Mark D Foster who is now senior VP and
CTO at US-based Neustar which offers a range of communication products and
services including number portability solutions. Excerpts from a recent
interview:

Is number portability relevant for India?

Mobile growth rates in India are literally staggering. Over the next
three years, the number of mobile subscribers in India might even exceed that of
the US, and still keep growing. Number portability is relevant given the
infrastructure impact of growing to that level–the numbering plan, number of
new mobile offices, trunking, signaling etc. Implementing portability now in a
phased manner is likely to turn out cheaper, than waiting several years to do
it. It will reduce growing costs.

Mark D Foster

But, why would operators invest money in number
portability, since it could increase churn?

There are some in the industry who are not happy about increasing
churn and increasing competition. But you can also find others who look at it as
a good opportunity to grow. In the US itself, the industry was very concerned
initially, especially about churn. There were also legitimate technical cost
issues that had not been assessed. But once operators really understood the
benefits, many started using it as a competitive weapon. You can now see TV ads
in the US advertising number portability.

What kind of increased costs will number portability
entail? Do you think that Indian operators and customers will be ready to pay
more for it? Have you seen any interest in India?

It probably does not make sense to have number portability for fixed
lines now, but for mobile networks, things are very different. In the US,
operators have been allowed to pass on the extra expenditure associated with
number portability to subscribers as an incremental fee. Considering that GSM
technologies are comparable across the globe, these costs should give you an
indication of that extra cost to subscribers. In the US, operators levy only
about 25 cents per month per subscriber for providing number portability. These
are subscribers whose monthly bills are in the range of $30—50, sometimes even
as low as $20. The extra cost to subscriber is not even one percent.

So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by the high level of interest in
India.

To further reduce the costs, can we have a model in
India where different operators share the same number portability infrastructure
rather than implement it separately?

It is certainly a viable scenario and is the ultimate deployment
model. For processing, we could have a central database to which all the
operators are connected to exchange traffic.

What are the road blocks for it?

The main objection is of costs. How do you rationalize the costs to
benefits? Also what is the right way to implement it? What are the costs as the
network grows? Is there anything that makes cost scale non-linear at some point?

What are your revenues like? Which is your biggest
market?

We are privately held. So, we don’t commonly report our financials,
but I can tell you that we are over $100 million in revenues. A significant
portion of the revenue comes from North America. We also do provide a host of
services globally like Internet registry and so on.

What is the nature of your relationship with
Impetus?

They are really a strategic-technology supplier for us. For example,
Impetus developed the wireless number portability service-provisioning gateway.
There is a long standing and close relationship between Neustar and Impetus.

Pravin Prashant and Benoy
George Thomas