A Study On The Effect Of Mobile Number Portability Policy And The User’ Switching Intention

The mobile number portability policy (MNP), which intends to promote competition in the telecommunications market, is now being used by more and more countries.In 2010, the city of Tianjin and Hainan province officially launched the implementation of number portability policy as pilot cities. In this paper, the research mainly focuses on the practical effect of mobile number portability policy and the users’switching intention.Analysis on the overall situation of users’switching behaviour, users’switching flow and switching barrier are analyzed based on the research of the practical effect of pilot implementation MNP policy. The study mainly adopts the methods of hypothetical deduction to predict the impact of one-way and two-way MNP policy on the telecommunications market, and make comparative analysis of the two policies. Study shows that, under the current conditon which the actual switching rate is low, the MNP policy has little effect on the market structure. Only if the switching rate reaches certain level, the MNP policy will play the role of adjust the competition structure of the market, and the two-way MNP policy will be much easier than one-way MNP policy to achieve a higher switching rate. Based on the effect of pilot implementation of MNP policy and the literature review, an impact factor model of users’switching intentions under MNP policy is proposed. The study shows that switching barriers, competition appeals and customer satisfaction are major factors. Switching barriers are mainly affected by switching costs and users’habit. Customer satisfaction are mainly affected by network quality and perceived price of customer service. Then empirical analysis verified the influence of different variables towards users’switching intention. The empirical study shows that competition appeal positively related to switching intention, switching barriers and customer satisfaction have negative relate to switching intentioa And the competition appeal has the most significant effect followed by customer satisfaction and switching barriers.At the end of the study, relevant suggestions on the implementation of mobile number portability policy are made respectively from the view of telecom operatorsand the government and the government.