CAT Telecom and Advanced Info Service (AIS) have emerged as the biggest winners from mobile-phone number portability after the service was launched in December 2010.

The requests from all cellular networks for number transfers as of January 16 had reached 401,053, of which 304,779 were completed.

The service, which was introduced by the forerunner of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), allows subscribers to switch networks and continue using the same mobile-phone number.

Clearinghouse Co was launched by five telecom operators to handle the service.

According to the NBTC, CAT benefited from the highest net gain during the period with 78,000 new subscribers, who had moved to either CAT's My brand third-generation service or TrueMove's H brand 3G service operated by Real Move. CAT is providing 3G capacity to Real Move to provide the service.

AIS scored a net 54,000 subscribers from mobile-number transfers.

Suffering net subscriber losses were Total Access Communication (DTAC) with 5,000, Digital Phone Co (DPC) with 12,000 and TrueMove with 110,000. A net loss suggests that the number of acquired subscribers is lower than the number of exiting customers.

Takorn Tantasit, secretary-general of the NBTC, said yesterday that the NBTC could not disclose the net number of acquired customers and exiting customers of each cellular network via number transfers, as the information is confidential. The watchdog can only reveal the net gains and losses.

An NBTC source said the concessions of both DPC and TrueMove would end next year. DPC, which is an AIS subsidiary, and TrueMove, which is in the same True Corp cellular business as Real Move, are believed to have encouraged their subscribers to migrate to AIS and Real Move before their concessions end.

AIS also boasts large network coverage.

It is hard to say whether DTAC customers switched to other networks because DTAC's network experienced problems three times during the past several weeks, the source added.

The NBTC is expected to complete the report at the end of this month on the number of DTAC customers who left for other networks since its network incurred its first problem on December 21.

http://www.nationmul...y-30174128.html

Netting this out, as near as I can figure, AIS snatched ~ 30,000 TrueMove customers, and maybe 5,000 from DTAC.

Assumptions:

78,000 of TrueMove's 110,000 net loss went to TrueMove H.

All 18,000 of DPC's net loss migrated to AIS. Subtracting the 18,000 from the 54,000 net gain leaves 36,000.

I don't think Hutch users had to go into the MNP process.

Observation:

Only 75% of MNP requests get, or have been processed?

The current run rate is estimated at 1,000 per day (requests).

The DPC, and TrueMove H situations skewed the run rate.

AIS seems to have the most satisfied customers.

This article indicates that DTAC lost a lot of customers just in the past ~ 60 days owing to their multiple network outages: (not sure if these 5,000 are the same as the MNP net losses?)

DTAC suffers churn from network outage

Melissa Chua | January 20, 2012

telecomasia.net

Thailand’s number two telco DTAC saw negative customer number growth last month on the back of three severe network outages that occurred in as many weeks.

According to the country’s MNP system, DTAC observed an exodus of 5,000 customers between December 5 2011 to January 16 this year. The outages occurred December 21 2011, 5 January 2012 and 8 January 2012.

DTAC’s chief customer officer Chaiyod Chirabowornkul told the Bangkok Post that the firm lost 3,000 customers in December alone, compared to an average of 1,000 normally. Chirabowowrnkul also admitted most of the customers who left were from the firm’s higher spending customer segment.

DTAC CEO Jon Eddy Abdullah told the Bangkok Post the recent customer churn was unlikely to affect the firm’s market position. DTAC has 23 million customers.

The first outage, which caused DTAC’s entire network to fail, occurred due to a flawed migration of the HLR from one database to another. The migration had been part of a two-year network modernization plan with Ericsson to replace DTAC’s 18 year-old 2G radio and backhaul network to one ready for 3G and LTE.

The second outage was caused by a switch in South Thailand that malfunctioned. Abdullah told reporters as a press conference earlier this month that what usually takes five minutes to restart took hours due to the ongoing HLR migration. The problem worsened when a parameter change aimed at helping users get back online more quickly led to iPhone 4 users being disconnected from the network.

Jeez, DTAC is good at shooting themselves in the foot!

I imagine CAT's gains are entirely due to TrueMove customers switching to H... AIS' gains probably thanks to having the best network & finally adding 3G.