Institutional stakeholder perceptions on mobile number portability implementations in Georgia and Belarus

Abstract

Mobile number portability (MNP) is considered an important condition for ensuring full competition in the telecommunications sector, enabling mobile subscribers to change their service providers any time without altering their phone numbers. In global existence already since 1997, within the post-Soviet space it was first introduced only in 2011 and 2012, in Georgia and Belarus respectively. The given article summarises views and perceptions on MNP implementations of relevant institutional stakeholders from those two countries, i.e., mobile operators and national regulatory/ policy-making authorities in charge of the telecommunications field. It was part of a larger research project that studied also the perspective of final consumers (mobile users), which is outside the scope of the present publication.