A?visiting professor believes it is difficult for effective competition to exist in mobile phone markets where consumers are not allowed the ability to take their existing numbers with them when they switch providers.
Richard Whish made the comments to the Sunday Sun after delivering the Fair Trading Commission’s Ninth Annual Lecture at the Accra Beach Hotel & Spa last Friday.
Whish, a professor of law at King’s College, and an author and contributor to various books on competition law, spoke on the topic: Competitive Markets – Do They Exist In Small Economies – Can Consumers Really Expect To Benefit?
He said that in Britain, the law prohibited mobile phone operators from restricting their customers’ ability to take their phone numbers if they chose to switch providers. This was known as number portability in the industry.
“If you’re asking me about competition in the mobile telephony market, I think what is absolutely crucial is to have number portability because that is what makes it possible for a consumer to switch from supplier A to supplier B. Without number portability, I don’t think you will have effective competition,” he stated. (RMB)
