Close to one million mobile subscribers in Ghana have switched networks by porting their numbers.

This is according to Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA), which says that during August the number of subscribers who successfully completed ports reached 817,202, two years after the NCA introduced Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in the country.

MNP allows mobile telephony customers to move from one service provider to another while retaining their old mobile number.

And according to the NCA, 447,095 mobile phone subscribers successfully ported their numbers in the second year of the MNP process, which ended July 7. This in turn has depicted an increase of 21% over the corresponding period last year.

As a result, the director general of the NCA, Paarock VanPercy, has described the exercise as a ‘success’.

“Current figures show that the net impact on each operator ranges from a positive of 5% to a negative of 2% of their respective subscriber bases, with new ports typically running between 25,000 and 50,000 per month,” he added.

VanPercy added that a faster porting process has been key to the success of MNP in Ghana.

Following agreed process performance goals among mobile network operators and the NCA, average porting times have reportedly dropped from 20 minutes to 5 minutes and 25 seconds over the past two years.

Furthermore, the NCA says that statistics indicate that most customers who have ported are satisfied with their decision to do so, as 75% of them remain active on the networks to which they have ported their numbers.

The others have since moved on to a third or fourth network, or even returned to their original network, the NCA says.

“In NCA's estimation, MNP has achieved its purpose as it has removed obstacles for any mobile telephony customer who wished to change networks but was reluctant to do so due to the inconvenience of changing his/her number,” said VanPercy.

At the end of 2012, Ghana had a mobile penetration rate of 97%, according to research firm BuddeComm. Ghana’s population is over 24 million, say World Bank figures.

Mobile operators in Ghana include the likes of MTN, Glo, Tigo and Airtel.