Leading Telecommunications Services provider, Airtel Nigeria has declared its readiness to absorb the influx of requests from consumers who wish to port to its network as the long anticipated Mobile Number Portability (MNP) for GSM operators in Nigeria finally takes off.

Speaking with journalists at the weekend in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director of the Company, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya assured that with Airtel’s robust and expanded 3.75g network coverage, many Nigerian subscribers who had waited so long to join the “best friends network” could finally exploit the window offered by the MNP to realize their wishes.

Ogunsanya who was flanked by Director of Regulatory Affairs & Special Projects, Osondu Nwokoro and Director of Corporate Communications & CSR, Emeka Oparah further stated that Airtel is excited with the kick-off of MNP, saying it was the first telecoms operator in the country to move for the adoption of MNP during its historic brand launch event, which held on the 19^th of November, 2010 at the Hilton Hotel in Abuja.

“I am happy to inform you that we have done all our homework and we are fully ready for the MNP go-live date. Airtel has transformed its network, investing over $1.5bn to improve network efficiency and quality. Airtel was the first telecoms operator to complete 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) Trial in Nigeria and also the first service provider to roll out HD (High Definition) Voice in the country.

“It is on record that Airtel has the largest and widest 3.75G coverage in Nigeria and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) recently scored us high in key Quality of Service parameters, saying we met all targets in a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Measurements carried out in December, 2012,” he said.

Ogunsanya added that the Telco has transformed the nation’s telecommunications landscape with the launch of several groundbreaking tariff and service platforms including 2Good Offers, MAMO (My Airtel My Offer) and a bouquet of exciting data offerings, pointing out that with such an impressive record, he had no doubt that Airtel was the network of choice to Nigerians.

Also speaking at the event, Osondu Nwokoro, Director Regulatory Affairs and Special Projects who provided journalists with insight on how the MNP porting process works said Airtel had a history of being customer-centric as evident in the numerous customer service awards it had won. He assured that the company would continue in its stride to excite and delight customers.

According to him, the porting process is fairly simple and can be done in 48 hours as all that a prospective customer who wants to port into the Airtel network needed to do was to visit an Airtel Express Shop, call a dedicated line, complete the port request form and send an sms to 3232 and receive an sms from NPC confirming the success of the porting.

Mr. Nwokoro further explained that the porting process does not attract any charges as the only requirement is that the subscriber should do the normal sim registration which entails the provision of a valid national Identification Card or an International Passport or a Driver’s License.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had in its recently released 2013 key performance indicators scorecard for the four GSM operators, ranked Airtel Nigeria above the rest of the operators in Drop Call Rate (DCR) and Traffic Channel Congestion (TCHcong) while also giving it a clean bill of health in Call Set-Up Success Rate (CSSR) and Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel Congestion (SDCCHcong).