J.770017 Ovum Numbers: Draft Questionnaire
Respondent Details
Standard Interviewer details and declaration
INTRODUCTION Private sample
Good morning/afternoon/evening. My name is ... from The Harris
Research Centre. May I speak to ..... We are conducting a study
amongst mobile phone users in the UK. INTERVIEWER: IF
RESPONDENT CANNOT CONTINUE IMMEDIATELY, MAKE APPOINTMENT TO CALL
BACK.
INTRODUCTION Business sample
Good morning/afternoon. My name is ... from The Harris Research
Centre.May I speak to a mobile phone user in your company.
INTRODUCTION Business sample – with respondent
Good morning/afternoon. My name is ... from The Harris Research
Centre. May I speak to a mobile phone user in your company. We
are conducting a study amongst mobile phone users in the UK.
ASK ALL
QA Do you currently own or use a mobile phone?
Yes CONTINUE
No CLOSE (REFERRAL?)
ASK ALL
QB What proportion of your mobile calls do you make for......
Business purposes ______% CHECK COMPANY SIZE.
Private purposes ______%
LOGIC CHECK: MUST ADD TO : 100%
IF 50% AND OVER BUSINESS USE ASK
QC May I just ask if you were involved wih the choice of your mobile 'phone
Yes CONTINUE
No CLOSE (REFERRAL?)
INTRODUCTION TO MAIN INTERVIEW:
This is part of a major survey conducted on behalf of Oftel, the
UK's Telecommunications regulatory body, and the aim is t
understand people's attitudes to changing mobile 'phone
operators'. We would therefoe be very grateful for your time to
answer some questions.
IF ASKED: The questions will take about 10 minute of your time
CHECK IF OK TO PROCEED. IF NOT MAKE APPOINTMENT.
ASK ALL
Q1 Which (network) operator do you currently use?
READ OUT
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (Network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (Network not known)
Orange
Mercury one2one
ASK ALL
Q2 And which service provider?
LIST TBC on 6/3/97
ASK ALL
Q4 Who pays for your mobie phone bills, including calls and monthly rental fees?
I pay for all calls and rental
I pay for all calls and my company for rental
I pay for rental and my compny for all calls
My company pays for all calls and rental
I pay for private calls, my company pays for business calls and rental
I apy for privte calls and rental, my company pays for business calls
ASK ALL
Q5 Approximately, how much is your monthly mobile bill, including calls and monthly rental fees?
£_____
ASK ALL
Q6 Approximately how many people do you call regularly on your mobile?
1-2
3-5
6-10
11-15
15-20
20-30
30-40
40-50
More than 50
ASK ALL
Q7 Approximately, how many calls do you make in a day?
1-2
3-5
610
11-15
15-20
More than 20
ASK ALL
Q8 Approximately, how many calls do you receive in a day?
1-2
3-5
6-10
11-15
15-20
20-30
30-40
40-50
More than 50
ASK ALL
Q9 Approximately, how many people call you regularly on your mobile?
1-2
3-5
6-10
11-15
15-20
20-30
30-40
40-50
More than 50
ASK ALL
Q10 How long have you been using a mobile phone?
CODE ONE
Under 6 months
6 months - 1 year
1-2 years
2-3 years
3-4 years
4-5 years
More than 5 years
DK
ASK ALL
Q11 And more specifically, how long have you been with OPERATOR/NETWORK (Q1)?
CODE ONE
Under 6 months
6 months - 1 year
1-2 years
2-3 years
3-4 years
4-5 years
More than 5 years
DK
LOGIC CHECK: Q9 CANNOT BE HIGHER THAN Q8
ASK ALL
Q12 Which Networks have you been on before your current one?
MULTICODE
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (Network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (Network not known)
Orange
Mercury one2one
DK
None
IF NOT 'DK' OR 'NONE', FOR EACH SELECTED AT Q12 ASK
Q13 And how long did you use operator/network?
CODE ONE
Under 6 months
6 months - 1 year
1-2 years
2-3 years
3-4 years
4-5 years
More than 5 years
DK
ASK ALL
Q14 How satisfied are yu with your current network Operator? Would you say ...
Very satisfied
Satisfied
Dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
ASK ALL
Q15 Would you consider switching to another Operator/Network in the future?
Yes
No
DK
ASK IF 'YES' AT Q15
Q15a Which Operator /Network?
READ OUT
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (Network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (Network not known)
Orange
Mercury one2one
ASK ALL
Q16 What do you think could be gained from switching to another Operator?
Lower prices
Better services
Better tariffs
Better quality
Better coverage
Roaming – international coverage
Other (PLEASE SPECIFY)
ASK ALL
Q17 What problems/pitfalls could be experienced by switching?
Number change
Cost of handset change
Cost of terminating cotracts
Loss of services
Poor coverage
Higher prices
Other (PLEASE SPECFIY)
ASK ALL
Q18 What reduction in your monthly bill would be necessary to persuade you to switch to another operator?
£_____
IF ON ANALOGUE NETWORKS AND CONSIDER SWITCHING
Q19 Are you planning to move to a digital network?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q19
Q20 Do you want to change operators at the same time?
Yes
No
IF ON DIGITAL NETWORKS AND CONSIDER SWITCHING
Q21a Do you currently use Short Messaging Services?
Yes
No
IF ON DIGITAL NETWORKS AND CONSIDER SWITCHING
Q21b Do you currently useVoice Messaging Services?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q21a/b
Q22 If these supplementary services were not available with the other operator, what reduction in your monthly bill would be necessary to persuade you to switch?
£_____
NUMBER CHANGES
IF MORE THAN ONE OPERATOR USED ASK
Q23 When you switched Operator/Network did you
have to change your mobile phone number?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q23
Q24 Did you have to change any stationery as a result?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q24
Q25 How much did this cost?
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
IF 'YES' AT Q23
Q26 How many people did you have to inform of your new number?
None
Up to 5
6-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-100
101-200
201-300
301-400
401-500
More than 500
IF ANY AT Q26
Q27 How much did doing this cost you?
Nothing
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
IF 'YES' AT Q23
Q28 Were there any other costs connected with the number change?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q28
Q28a What was the nature of these costs? RECORD ANSWER AND PROBE FULLY
IF 'YES' AT Q28
Q29 And how much did it cost?
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
IF 'NO' AT Q23
Q30 If you had to change your
mobile number when changing operator, would you have to change
any stationery
as a result?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q30
Q31 How much would this cost?
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
DK
IF 'NO' AT Q23
Q32 How many people would you have to inform of your new mobile number?
None
Up to 5
6-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41-50
51-100
101-200
201-300
301-400
401-500
More than 500
IF ANY AT Q32
Q33 How much would this cost?
Nothing
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
DK
IF 'NO' AT Q23
Q34 Would you face any other costs connected with the number change?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q34
Q34a What would be the nature of these costs? PROBE FULLY AND RECORD ANSWER
IF 'YES' AT Q34
Q35 How much would this be?
Nothing
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
IF A BUSINESS USER
Q36 What proportion of customers contact you on your mobile phone?
______%
IF MORE THAN 0% AT Q36
Q37 What proportion of these could you lose if you changed your mobile number?
______%
IF MORE THAN 0% AT Q36
Q38 How much would it cost you to find the same number of new customers?
£______
ASK ALL
Q39 If you could keep your existing mobile number when switching to a new Operator/Network, would you consider switching?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q39
Q39a Which Operator/Network?
READ OUT
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (Network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (Network not known)
Orange
Mercury one2one
ASK ALL
Q40 What reduction in your monthly bill would be necessary to persuade you to switch to a new operator?
£______
ASK ALL
Q41 When your friends or business contacts change their mobile number, do you haveto change entries in address book / change auto – diallers (on fixed network phones), etc.?
Yes
No
IF 'YES'AT Q41
Q42 How long does this take for each changed mobile number?
Up to 1 minute
1-2 minutes
2-5 minutes
5-10 minutes
10-15 minutes
15-30 minutes
30 minutes to 1 hour
Up to half a day
Up to a day
Up to three days
Up to a week
More than a week
IF 'YES' AT Q41
Q43 How much did this cost for each changed mobile number?
Nothing
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
ASK ALL
Q44 Have you ever found that friends / business contacts have changd their mobile number without telling you?
Yes
No
IF 'YES' AT Q44
Q45 How did you go about finding out their new number? RECORD ANSWER AND PROBE FULLY
IF 'YES AT Q44
Q46 Approximately, how long did it take to find one number?
Up to 15 minutes
15-30 minutes
30 minutes to 1 hour
Up to half a day
Up to a day
Up to three days
Up to a week
More than a week
IF 'YES'AT Q41
Q47 How much did it cost?
Nothing
Up to £1
£2-£5
£6-£10
£11-£25
£26-£50
£51-£75
£76-£100
£101-£200
£201-£300
£301-£400
£401-£500
More than £500
The last questions are for classification purposes only.
QD INTERVIEWER: CODE SEX OF RESPONDENT
Male
Female
ASK ALL
QE Which of the following age groups do you fall into?
Under 18
18-25
26-35
36-45
46-55
56-65
66-75
Over 75
ASK ALL
QF What is your occupation?
Employed - full time
Employed - part time
Self - employed
Retired
Housewife/husband
Student
Unemployed/temporarily not working
DK
Refused
ASK ALL WORKING
QG What is the main activity of the company you work for?
Manufacturing
Business Services
Other Services
Distribution
ASK ALL
QH Which area of the country do you live in?
London
South East
SouthWest
Midlands
North and Scotland/Northern Ireland
THANKS & CLOSE
Click here to return to contents
We are carrying out a study for Oftel, the telecommunications regulator, into number portability on mobile networks.
We are trying to establish whether the benefits of mobile number portability to the customer outweigh the costs to the operators, and we are carrying out a survey of corporate customers.
1. How many employees does your company have? .......
2. How many of these have mobile phones (paid for by company)? ......
3. Which network/operator do you currently use?
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (network not known)
Orange
Mercury One2One
4. Do you use any of the following services:
voice messaging
short message service
mobile fax
mobile data
5. How much is your monthly bill for mobile telephony? £......
6. How many calls are made on average per mobile phone each day?
......
7. How many calls are received on average per mobile phone each day?
......
History
8. For how many years has your company had mobile phones? ......
9. For how long have you been with your present operator/network? .....
10. With which operators/networks were you with before, and for how long?
Vodafone GSM (Digital) from......... to...........
Vodafone Analogue from......... to...........
Vodafone (network not known)from......... to...........
Cellnet GSM (Digital) from......... to...........
Cellnet Analogue from......... to...........
Cellnet (network not known)from......... to...........
Orange from......... to...........
Mercury One2One from......... to...........
11. How satisfied are you with your present operator?
very satisfied
satisfied
dissatisfied
very dissatisfied
Have you recently considered switching to a new operator?
yes
no
IF YES to q 13 go to 14
14. Which operator did you consider switching to?
Vodafone GSM (Digital)
Vodafone Analogue
Vodafone (network not known)
Cellnet GSM (Digital)
Cellnet Analogue
Cellnet (network not known)
Orange
Mercury One2One
15. What problems or pitfalls would you experience by switching?
having to change number
cost of handset replacement
contract termination cost
loss of services
loss of coverage
loss of international roaming
higher prices
lower customer service
disruption to company
other (write in)
16. What would you gain from switching to another operator?
lower prices
better quality
better services
better coverage
better customer service
international roaming
other (write in)
17. What reduction in your monthly bill will be necessary in order to persuade you to switch to another operator? £..........or %..........
IF ON ANALOGUE NETWORKS AND CONSIDER SWITCHING
18. Are you planning to move to a digital network?
yes
no
IF YES AT Q 18
19. Do you want to change operators at the same time?
yes
no
IF USES SHORT MESSAGE SERVICE OR VOICE MESSAGING IN Q4
20. If the short message service or the voice messaging service were not available with the other operator, what reduction in your monthly bill would be necessary to persuade you to switch? £............
21. Do you publicise your mobile number:
on business cards yes/ no
in internal telephone directories yes/ no
in external telephone directories yes/ no
on letterheads and faxes yes/ no
on vehicle livery yes/ no
elsewhere (write in..................)
22. Do you have automatic facilities to redirect calls from the fixed network to mobile networks
yes
no
IF USED ANOTHER OPERATOR IN Q 10
23. Did you had to change your mobile numbers when you changed operator?
yes
no
24. Did you have to change stationery as a result?
yes
no
IF YES AT Q 24 go to 25
25. How much did this cost? £...........
26. How many people did your company have to inform of the new numbers? .........
27. How much did this cost? £...........
28. Were there any other costs connected with the number change? yes
no
IF YES AT Q 28 go to 29
29. What was the nature of these costs?
30. How much did this cost? £.......
IF NO AT Q25 OR IF DID NOT CHANGE OPERATOR AT Q 10
31. If you had to change your mobile numbers, would you have to change stationery as a result?
yes
no
IF YES AT Q 31 go to 32
32. How much would this cost? £...........
33. How many people would your company have to inform of the new numbers? .........
34. How much would this cost? £...........
35. Would there any other costs connected with the number change? yes
no
IF YES AT Q 35 go to 36
36. What would be the nature of these costs?
37. How much would this cost? £.......
38. If you could keep your existing mobile numbers, would you consider switching to another operator?
yes
no
39. What reduction in your monthly bill would be necessary to persuade you to switch? £ .........or %..........
Thank you for your time.
Would you please return this survey to:
Ovum Limited
1 Mortimer Street
London W1N 7RH
Click here to return to contents
The purpose of this paper is to identify and cost elements involved in providing mobile number and to assign figures to be included in the cost benefit analysis.
The basic assumption is that portability will involve the cessation of the account with the donor service provider and network and the establishment of a new account with the recipient service provider and network. A new IMSI will be issued and a new SIM fitted to the mobile.
The method assumed for handling incoming calls is signalling relay, where the original GMSC obtains an MSRN from the HLR of the recipient network. Signalling relay is understood to be the approach preferred by the operators.
A method is also needed for handling of outgoing calls from the recipient network to mobiles with imported numbers. Either all outgoing calls must be screened or calls to imported numbers will be tromboned to the original network and back, possibly with dropback. We assume that tromboning will be used to avoid increased set-up costs. At some stage a screening solution may become more cost effective but we expect that if the operators are content with the commercial implications of signalling relay then they will accept tromboning. This approach may produce a slight overestimate of costs.
Developments are also needed for the SMS service to provide portability. SMS is a partially standardised service that is not fully interconnected within the UK at present. No system is standardised for forwarding messages between SMS Centres but such a facility could be developed relatively easily. The SMS service is complicated by the fact that a customer of a UK network may be registered with an SMSC outside the UK. The tariffing and billing arrangements for SMS are not yet fully developed, and the service is being used beyond the current boundaries of its design. For the purpose of this analysis, we assume that the SMSCs are interconnected because this is an expected development of this service.
In the longer term a different method of providing number portability may be introduced as a result of standardisation work that it just beginning within ETSI. It is not possible to predict the outcome of that work, but alternative methods are unlikely to be introduced unless they improve on the cost benefits of the earlier methods.
Services are normally provided to end customers through service providers and dealers. In the case of DCS-1800 (PCN) the service provider function may be part of the network operator's own organisation. Dealers handle the sales to customers and establish contracts between the customers and the service providers for airtime. Customers are billed by the service providers and do not have direct contracts with the network operators. Network operators compete with respect to end users by direct advertising and branding and by offering special features and quality. They compete with respect to service providers mainly by offering special bonus arrangements.
Number portability will have significant implications for dealer and service providers. Some customers will change service provider coincidentally with changing network operators, others will not. It is not yet clear how service providers will handle number portability and whether some form of one-stop shopping will develop where a recipient service provider both opens the new account and handles the closure of the old account on behalf of the customer.
The administrative systems of service providers are in most cases connected to the administrative systems of the network operators so that customers can be brought on-line almost immediately.
A procedure needs to be designed for the porting of a number from one operator to another and the synchronisation of this procedure with the issue of a new SIM and the withdrawal of the old SIM. These procedures have not yet been designed and agreed. In the fixed networks, faxes, and more recently EDI messages, are sent between operators. In contrast the operators in the Netherlands are studying the development of a distributed transactional database to handle the transactions.
There are the following challenges in the identification of costs:
• In many cases individual activities serve multiple objectives and therefore their costs have to be allocated between these different objectives. The allocations may be arbitrary and will not necessarily reflect the decisions that would be made by a profit maximising business.
• The costs borne by operators may be the prices that they can negotiate with suppliers. If the nature of the supply is special, the price will be set by negotiation without any recognised price expectation. A critical factor in the negotiation will be the extent to which the operator can consider alternative suppliers. If he is locked into his suppliers then the price may contain a very high element of profit.
• The cost benefit analysis is concerned with the costs and benefits to the UK as a whole and therefore a distinction needs to be made between additional work occasioned inside the UK and additional work occasioned outside.
• The nature of the costs in many cases is a high one-off investment in the development of a capability and a very low recurring cost per item (eg software)
• The range of costs for software development is very high, because the difference in productivity between different software programmers and system designers can be more than an order of magnitude.
• Costs for some items may change significantly as a result of technological developments and an expansion in the market for number portability following requirements proposed by the European Commission. (The CBA compares the early introduction of number portability with no number portability at all, ie it ignores the effect of a requirement from the Commission)
• There may be opportunity costs. The main potential areas are the use of scarce resources to support number portability development when these resources could be deployed on work that would yield greater benefits to the UK as a whole (not greater profits to the operator concerned), and any effect that the choice of solution has in inhibiting the development and implementation of new services and features that would be of benefit to customers.
• Cost will be lower the later they are incurred because of scope for achieving economies of scope in combining the activity with other activities.
The approach that we are taking is as follows:
a) Where systems and functions will be provided anyway, we include only the marginal increase in costs necessary for the support of number portability.
b) Where there is no established price expectation and prices are set by negotiation, we use an estimate that takes account of the development cost and the level of competition.
c) Where a product or function has been developed already within the UK with significant development cost but zero production cost, the cost to be included in the analysis is zero, because the analysis is concerned with the additional cost to the UK as a whole. Thus the acquisition of additional software by a network operator may cost the operator a great deal of money but if the supplier has already developed the product and is in the UK, the cost in terms of the analysis will be zero, or rather just the cost of handling the sale, installation and testing.
d) Where a product is developed within the UK specifically for number portability, the costs to be included should be based on an estimate of the man hours and typical labour costs, plus a reasonable profit. Excess profits, which may well exist and be very large, should not be included because they stay within the UK.
e) Where a product is developed outside the UK, excess profits are included because they are a cost to the UK as a whole.
f) opportunity costs related to additional labour costs are included, but other opportuntity costs could not be included because no operator was able to give us a reasonable guide to the possible size of these opportunity costs
g) Costs that occur after start-up are reduced by 10% for year that they occur after start-up to take account of technological developments. This is not to be confused with discounting in determining the Net Present Value.
Porting from TACS to GSM has already been introduced by the GSM operators. The scale of the facilities are expected to be designed to allow for the great majority of existing customers to port to GSM. If they decide to port from TACS to DCS-1800, they can port via GSM. The costs of porting to GSM are already incurred, and the costs of porting from GSM to DCS-1800 are the same as porting between different GSM networks. Therefore the cost of porting from TACS to the GSM or DCS-1800 service of another network will be the same as porting between GSM networks.
Spectrum for DCS-1800 has slightly different propagation characteristics to that of GSM. These characteristics will result in greater network costs but make the spectrum of lower economic value. We therefore take the view that the extra network costs will be balanced by the lower value of the spectrum and so both effects can be ignored.
Dealers and Service Providers
| Incurred by | Area | Activity | Analysis | Method of estimation | Costs to be included in model | |
| 1.1 | Dealers and network operators | Marketing | Advertising new number portability possibilities | Integral with overall marketing which is changing continually. Therefore the marginal cost is zero and this item should not be included. | N/a | zero |
| 1.2 | Dealers | Serving the porting customer | Handling establishment of new account, provision and fitting of new SIM, contacting service provider | Level of activity will be increased slightly compared to activity without portability. | 10 minutes of shop assistant time per porting, say £1.20 per porting | £1.20 per porting |
| 1.3 | Dealers | Customer management system and interface to service providers | Adding the category of ported number, adding new requests to be sent to the service providers | Development of software enhancement. Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Transitional activity. For new dealers it will be an integral part of their systems. Task is comparatively easy but dealer systems may have to interface with several different service provider systems. | Assume 10 suppliers with 30 man days development effort each at £400/day | Set up cost of £120 000 |
| 1.4 | Dealers | Customer management system and interface to service providers | Installation and testing of new enhancements | Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Transitional activity. Will depend to some extent on the frequency of routine upgrades. | Assume 10 000 dealers and half a day each at £300 | Set up cost of £1 500 000 |
| 1.5 | Dealers | Staff training | Adding new procedures and training existing staff | Transitional activity and therefore part of the set-up costs. Once NP is established it will be an integral part of the training of new staff and so need for additional training will reduce to zero. Training is likely to be carried out when trading is slack and so the marginal cost for sales staff will be zero. Thus the only cost will be the production of training leaflets by the software suppliers and additional time spent by the system suppliers explaining the new procedures to the dealers' staff. | Most of the cost will be in the time for preparation, say 100*3 man days at £300/day plus £10 000 physical production | Set up cost of £100 000 |
| 1.6 | Service providers | Customer service | Closing the old account | Will involve additional data to indicate porting but overall level of activity will increase only very slightly compared to closing account without portability. Unlikely to result in additional staff being needed just because of number portability element, therefore zero marginal cost. | N/a | zero |
| 1.7 | Service providers | Customer service | Opening the new account | Will involve additional data to indicate porting but overall level of activity will increase only very slightly compared to closing account without portability. Unlikely to result in additional staff being needed just because of number portability element, therefore zero marginal cost. | N/a | zero |
| 1.8. | Service providers | Customer management system | Develop system enhancements to handle ported numbers and present new form of request to networks for opening of new account and closure of old account | Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Systems are likely to be bespoke and to have to interface to many different dealer systems. | Assume 10
different systems with 200 man days of effort each at
£500/day Interoperability testing with network operators 10 systems testing with 4 operators and 20 man days per test at £500/day |
£1 000 000
£400 000 |
| 1.9 | Service providers | Customer management system | Install and test system enhancements | Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Transitional activity. | 30 sites with 2 man days each at £400/day, plus 20 man days of preparation. | Set up cost of £32 000 |
| 1.10 | Service providers | Staff training | Adding new procedures and training existing staff | Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Transitional activity. For new service providers it will be an integral part of their training. Staff time is likely to be covered by using quieter hours therefore zero additional costs for the staff. Additional costs for the trainers | 30 sites with 1 man day each at £400/day plus 5 days preparation | Set up cost of £14 000 |
| 1.11 | Service providers | Help desk | Adapt software to handle and indicate ported numbers, adapt procedures for attendants | Likely to use resources in UK therefore can be estimated in terms of development effort. Transitional activity. | 10 systems with 10 man days each at £500/day, rest is included in enhancement of customer management system. | Set up cost of £50 000 |
| 1.12 | SIM suppliers | SIM programming | Changes to MSISDN-IMSI relationship | SIMs will continue to be specific to the current network operator and therefore should not need to be changed. Although they may contain the MSISDN they do not normally do so. | No changes needed | zero |
Network operator costs - excluding network
| Area | Activity | Analysis | Method of estimation | Costs to be included in model | |
| 2.1 | Relations to service providers and their software suppliers | Discussions on procedures and systems | Consultation and discussions will be needed. SPs and their suppliers will have to be shown specifications. Procedures will have to be agreed. | 50 man days per PCN operator, 100 man days for Cellnet and Vodafone at £400/day | £200 000 |
| 2.2 | Customer care systems | Retain data on exported numbers | Storage capacity | 1kB of data per exported subscriber. Using PC storage costs, 4GB costs £1000, so 1 kB costs 0.025p. Even allowing for costs 10x higher still negligible. | Ignore - negligible |
| 2.3 | Customer care systems | Upgrade
interfaces to service providers Develop and implement new activation and de-activation procedures New procedures for complaint handling on ported numbers |
Systems different for each operator. Designs need to be changed, tested and installed. Base on labour costs even though some operators may be overcharged because excess profits will be in UK. | Development
of 400 man days for PCN, 600 man days for Cellnet and
Vodafone at £500/day Testing of 50 man days for PCN, 100 man days for Cellnet and Vodafone at £400/day Interworking testing with service providers (10 SPs, 4 networks and 20 man days each at £500/man day) |
£1 000 000
£120 000 £400 000 |
| 2.4 | Customer care systems | Number transaction | Interaction between network operators to confirm porting of number. (Fixed networks send faxes with list of numbers, but an electronic system is being introduced) Assume manual system initially and allow time for errors to be corrected. Assume interactions with service providers are automatic. | Estimate at £4 per number. | £4 per porting |
| 2.5 | Billing and fraud | Study and analyse consequences of portability | Fraud problems will need careful study | 60 man days per PCN operator, 120 man days for Cellnet and Vodafone at £500/day | £180 000 |
| 2.6 | Lawful Interception | New procedure to direct request to correct operator | Authorities
send request to original operator who sets up intercept
on each MSC. For ported numbers, request will be sent to
original operator. Request can be returned to authorities
with indication of new donor operator. Cost is change to procedure plus extra wasted request when for a ported number. |
5 man days
per operator to change procedure. Assume time for change of procedure of authorities can be handled during lull in activity with zero cost. Operational cost is impossible to estimate as no information on level of interception, therefore ignore. |
Setup: £2 000 per operator |
| 2.7 | Billing systems | Enhancement to handle CDRs for calls to ported numbers | Existing systems for the support of roaming. CDR formats already standardised for international roamers. | 100 man days per operator at £500 per day | Setup: £200 000 |
| 2.8 | Billing systems | Handling of CDRs for each call | Small amount of data should have low cost. | Estimate | 0.5 p per call for calls to ported numbers |
| 2.9 | Re-negotiation of interconnect agreements | Estimate on manpower | 40 man days PCN, 80 man days GSM at £500/man day | £120 000 |
Mobile network costs - Signalling relay
| Area | Activity | Analysis | Method of estimation | Costs to be included in model | |
| 3.1 | Design studies | Further studies and specification writing | 100 man days per PCN operator, 200 man days for Cellnet and Vodafone at £400/day | £240 000 | |
| 3.2 | HLRs | Provision of facility to interrogate or respond to other HLR, or system for re-directing messages | Already under development by Ericssons. Could be shared with other functions. Significant part of costs may go outside UK. Ericssons prices may be very high but scope for operators to take initiatives | Estimate | £100 000 per HLR |
| 3.3 | Route for interconnecting HLRs to carry signalling | Provision of secure diverse routes | Leased lines desirable to reduce delay. Assume 2 separate 64kbit/s leased lines of 100 km length per network | Assume £10 000 per leased line per year | £80 000 per year |
| 3.4 | Incoming calls additional conveyance | Handling of calls to exported mobiles | All calls except those to roaming mobiles are likely in practice to be routed through recipient GMSC | Based on Oftel Determination of BT Standard Services, confidential information from Vodafone and 1994 NERA report. | 0.6 p / min conveyance plus 0.05 p/min signalling |
| 3.5 | Tromboning of calls from own network to imported mobiles | Tromboning through original network | Twice cost of 3.4 | Twice cost of 3.4 | 1.2 p / min (no signalling) |
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It is generally believed that number portability will make the telecommunications industry more competitive because it will remove one of the barriers to customers switching between operators. This will encourage new operators to enter, and because they will make use of the latest technology, they will have lower costs. From a national view point this will result in more expensive operators going out of business, with the result that the nation will spend less economic resources producing the same quantity of telecommunications services.
In the work carried out of Oftel by NERA, the consultants estimated the value of the “type 2” benefits, but these caused considerable debate at the MMC Inquiry. While the MMC accepted the general case, they were not convinced by the NERA numbers. NERA estimated that for the fixed network, Type 2 benefits would be £1,279m over en years, and these made up about 70% of the total benefits.
For mobile number portability, Ovum has taken the line that Type 2 benefits are likely to be lessthan on the fixed network on account of the barriers to entry posed by licensing controls. Furthemore, we have been reluctant to include Type 2 benefits in the cost benefits analysis because their contreversial natue may undermine the robustness of the general case. Oftel has, however asked us to estimate their value as an illustration of their potential size. This paper describes the resultss of this exercise.
Oftel has provided Ovum with confidential estimates from the four UK operators on their cost per minute of incoming and outgoing calls. These estimates are for fully allocated hitoric costs (based on financial data for 1995/96), and are shown in Figure 1. The names of the Operators and their actual costs have been withheld for confidentiality reasons, and are simply referred to as Operator 1 to Operator 4.
Operator 4 has the highest estimate, and Operator 1 the lowest estimate. We believe that these are a good representation of the differences in efficiency of the four operators because they provide a measure of inputs (financial resources) and outputs (call minutes). However because of the lack of information from Operator 2 for outgoing calls, we concentrate on the rates for incoming calls.
Figure 1: Operators' estimates of the cost of calls
| Operator | Incoming estimate (pence per minute)(1) | Outgoing estimate (pence per minute)(1) |
| Operator 1 | xxxx | xxxx |
| Operator 2 | xxxx | xxxx |
| Operator 3 | xxxx | xxxx |
| Operator 4 | xxxx | xxxx |
(1) Data withheld for confidentiality reasons
We believe that the effect of NP will be as follows:
in order to create a model of the impact of a decision to intoduce NP, we have:
We have calculated that if Operator 3 improved its efficiency to the level of Operator 2 (that is,by just over 10 %) for these two years as a result of NP, there would be a positive net present value of £360m. The cash flows (before discounting) are of the order of £200m per year.
Based on this limited analysis, we believe that Type 2 of mobile number portability benefits are substantial. These figures compare with £150m for type A benefits and £111m for type B benefits.
However we still feel that the rigour of the Type 2 analysis is less than for the other benefit analyses, and prefer to use this estimate as an illustrative “note to the accounts”.
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