The Consumer Benefits of Efficient Mobile-Number-Portability Administration

Using international data on porting, churn, and mobile prices, this paper seeks to estimate the impact of a change in the efficiency of a mobile-number-portability (MNP) regime. It offers new empirical evidence, consistent with prior findings in the literature, that the average time it takes to port a mobile line is positively and statistically significantly correlated with wireless prices. Measured by days to port, the United States boasts the most efficient MNP regime in the world, with average porting times of roughly two hours. By comparison, the average porting time among all “early adopters�? in the sample — countries that embraced MNP by 2005 — is 6.6 days. Regardless of a country’s existing level of efficiency, any delay in porting times is predicted to increase wireless prices. Thus, even a relatively efficient country such as the United States may incur higher prices in response to a diminution in MNP efficiency.