Investigation into the difficulty of number portability among operators: Uninformed contracts, quota and minimum consumption restrictions, and difficulty in refunding call charges
2024-08-27
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There are many obstacles to transferring out, and there is a minimum consumption limit for transferring in. It is not easy to refund the remaining balance of the original card after switching networks. The number portability policy, which has been implemented for more than five years, is still full of tricks.
In June this year, Mr. Qiao's father in Shanghai was going to change his China Mobile card number to China Telecom, so he went to the business hall to "port the number", but was told that his package had signed a five-year contract and that he would have to pay a penalty of more than 1,000 yuan for not fulfilling the contract for three years. But Mr. Qiao's father said he was not aware of the opening of this contract......
Mr. Qiao's father's experience is not an isolated case. Mr. Liu, who works in Shaanxi, has also encountered this kind of problem before. At the end of July this year, he wanted to transfer his China Unicom card number to China Mobile, but was prompted that he had applied for a shared service (group owner) and could not transfer the network. Mr. Liu also said that he had never actively activated or allowed this service.
The so-called number portability means that users can transfer their current number to other operators without changing their mobile phone numbers. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, since it was officially implemented nationwide in 2019, as of the first quarter of 2022, the number of users who have ported their numbers nationwide has exceeded 57 million.
The process of number portability is not complicated. However, in reality, many users encounter many obstacles in number portability. For example, the number portability requires multiple trips, there are unknown contracts, and liquidated damages need to be paid.
Industry insiders interviewed said that because the operator headquarters have KPI assessments for grassroots operating units, the three operators are not very enthusiastic about number portability, "especially the lingering fear of porting out, which will form some intentional or unintentional obstacles."
China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom have escaped from the siege of obstacles
The contract is a stumbling block on the road to number portability.
After Mr. Qiao learned about the uninformed contract, he contacted the mobile hotline for his father and got the same answer, so he turned to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to complain by phone. Later, 10086 called and said that it could compensate 200 yuan for the phone bill, but if he switched networks, he would still have to pay thousands of yuan in liquidated damages. Mr. Qiao believed that the uninformed contract was an unfair clause and did not agree to it. The staff said that if both options did not work, he could only cancel his account and quit the network.
Mr. Qiao continued to complain to the Black Cat platform, the Consumer Protection Committee and other channels. He told reporters that every time he made a complaint, the 10086 hotline would call to communicate, but he has not been able to successfully transfer his number to another network.
Mr. Yan from Henan was also informed by China Telecom when he was applying for number portability that his number was bound to a 240-month premium number agreement, but he was not aware of this when signing the transfer contract. After unsuccessful communication, he complained through multiple channels. In early August, China Telecom called and told Mr. Yan that he could port his number.
In addition, remote ownership also causes considerable trouble to consumers.
The contact number of Mr. Liu, who works in Shaanxi, belongs to Fujian Unicom. The operator said that according to regulations, Mr. Liu needs to go back to the offline business hall in Zhangzhou, Fujian to cancel the above service. But he was in Shaanxi, so he went to the complaint platform to complain. The next day, Unicom called to inform him that the above service had been cancelled for him. After that, Mr. Liu successfully switched networks.
Li Yuan, a partner at Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, said that if users only discovered that there was an unknown contract in the card number signing agreement during the number portability process, it is likely that the operator did not remind the user of important terms when signing the contract, which may be a standard clause. "Of course, we cannot rule out that the operator has fulfilled its obligation to remind and explain the standard clauses, but as the party providing the standard clauses, it should provide evidence for this."
Zhu Wei, deputy director of the Communication Law Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that if the operator fully informed consumers of their rights and obligations during the signing of the agreement, and the consumer did not complete the package, they must abide by the agreement and bear the relevant responsibilities. "But in many cases, there is no special notification, and even the business is handled electronically by phone, which is the consent of the user, and this will not be effective."
Transfers are required to pay a minimum amount
Not only may transfers out encounter obstacles, but transfers in are sometimes not so smooth either.
In February this year, Ms. Guo from Jinjiang County, Quanzhou, Fujian went to the local Unicom business hall to transfer her number, but was told that she needed to register and queue up. In March, she went to the business hall to inquire about the progress and was told that there were still no vacancies. She inquired on WeChat in April, May, and June and the situation remained the same. Ms. Guo told reporters that this caused her to pay more for her previous mobile card package every month for the past six months.
The turning point came after the complaint. In June, Ms. Guo, who was in Xiamen, complained about the matter online. Not long after, the Fujian Unicom hotline contacted her and said that when she returned to her hometown in Quanzhou, she could go to the business hall to handle the number portability. The local Unicom business hall also contacted her to confirm this statement. However, the business hall staff sent her the option of porting the network, which was the Unicom Smart Home package, with the lowest price of 88 yuan/month.
On August 16, the reporter contacted the staff member as a consumer, and he said that the business hall where he worked could handle number porting to China Unicom, but the lowest package was 128 yuan/month. The reporter randomly contacted several China Unicom business halls in Quanzhou, and many of them also said that the lowest transfer package standard was 128 yuan/month, or 88 yuan/month.
With questions about the quota limit and the minimum consumption package, the reporter called the Fujian Unicom hotline, and the staff said that the "quota limit" situation needs to be based on the reply of the local business hall. Another staff member said that if you encounter such a situation, you can call 10010 to register, and a specialist will contact you to inquire about the situation. However, he mentioned that you can freely choose a package when porting your number to Unicom, with the lowest package being 9 yuan/month. This is inconsistent with the minimum transfer package stated by the above-mentioned offline business halls.
Mr. Yan from Henan also encountered obstacles when transferring to China Mobile. On August 1, he contacted Henan Mobile and said he wanted to transfer his card number. After several rounds of communication and 10 days of waiting, on August 11, China Mobile called and said that it could handle the number transfer, but said that Mr. Yan's number was a lucky number and that he would need to pay a minimum consumption of 188 yuan per month after the transfer. On August 15, Mr. Yan told reporters that he felt the minimum consumption requirement was unreasonable and that he had been struggling for too long to transfer his number and had given up.
"The so-called quota restrictions and designated packages by operators are clearly artificial obstacles, infringing on consumers' right to choose and fair trade," said Li Yuan. The "Number Portability Service Management Regulations" previously issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also stipulate that operators should treat number porting users as new users of the network, ensuring that number porting users enjoy the same rights under the same conditions. Special tariff plans shall not be set for number porting users.
It is not easy to refund the remaining balance of the original card after switching networks
Even if the number portability is successful, it does not mean the trouble is over.
Mr. Liu, who works in Shaanxi, was unable to get the remaining balance on his Unicom card refunded after switching from Unicom to Telecom. He followed the customer service instructions in the Unicom app but could not find the refund entrance, so he called the Fujian Unicom hotline. The staff said that to get the balance refunded, Mr. Liu needed to bring his ID card back to the Fujian business hall, "there is only one channel."
The Unicom hotline said something inconsistent with the APP customer service, and Mr. Liu said he wanted to complain before hanging up the phone. A few minutes later, the above staff called again and said that they had not understood the rules before. Users who switch networks can refund the fees remotely in the Unicom APP, but they have to wait until the next month after the number portability is successful. Now Mr. Liu can only wait until September to try again.
The reporter called the Fujian Unicom hotline for verification, and the staff said that the refund after number portability can be processed at the offline business hall of the home location, or on the Unicom online APP, but the latter can only be realized on the premise that the user has not logged out of the Unicom APP account logged in before the network portability. Many users reported that both methods are not easy.
Some users have also experienced more twists and turns. Two years ago, Mr. Wang from Taiyuan, Shanxi needed to transfer his card number from China Mobile to China Unicom. Because of the authority involved, he ran back and forth between multiple local business halls and spent a lot of effort. After coming to Beijing to work, due to signal problems, he considered switching back to China Mobile, but was told that he needed to return to the local offline business hall to handle it. He could only delay it for a long time and wait until he returned to his hometown in Shanxi to handle it. But the trouble is not over yet. Mr. Wang was told by China Unicom and China Mobile that after the number portability, the remaining call charges of the original card number need to wait until the end of the bill cycle to go to the local business hall for a refund, which has resulted in the remaining call charges on his original China Unicom card not being refunded to date.
In mid-August this year, Mr. Wang contacted Shanxi Unicom again, and the staff said that he could now withdraw the remaining phone bill on the Unicom APP. However, because too much time had passed, Mr. Wang could not log in to his original account because the number had been transferred to China Mobile, so he failed to do so. Within the next day, two Unicom staff members contacted Mr. Wang one after another, saying that they would register and report it for him first and actively follow up on the refund process. However, a week later, Mr. Wang told reporters that he still had not received any results from Unicom.
The reason for the difficulty in refunding is that the original operator has suffered losses and wants to keep the phone bill funds in its own pool. Some consumers told reporters that the local mobile business hall told them that after porting the number, the balance of the original card can only be transferred to other mobile cards, such as those of relatives and friends, and cannot be directly refunded.
Lawyer Li Yuan said that user phone charges are stored-value consumption and are prepaid. Operators only have the right to manage them on behalf of users, and have no right to dispose of them on their own. "When users transfer their numbers to other networks, the balance in their accounts should be refunded in full according to the same principles as for users who have withdrawn from the network. The operator that transferred the number should take the initiative to refund the fees. It is also unreasonable to require that the balance must be transferred to other card numbers under the operator. Users have the right to freely dispose of prepaid fees, and operators cannot impose any restrictions."
Zhu Wei mentioned that the transfer of phone charges during number portability mainly depends on the communication between operators, including how to use a scientific financial system for settlement, and the responsibility cannot be pushed onto consumers. "There are a lot of business connections between operators, and this kind of transfer and settlement will not be a technically difficult or difficult problem."
As the market becomes increasingly saturated, some companies consider number portability as a competitive business
The number portability policy has been implemented for several years. In March 2019, the "Government Work Report of the State Council" clearly stated that "number portability" would be implemented nationwide, which means that the "number portability" pilot program for nearly 10 years has moved beyond the pilot area. On November 27 of the same year, the national number portability service was officially launched.
"The communications industry's number portability and 5G commercial operations were carried out almost at the same time. One of the main purposes of number portability is to cooperate with the development of 5G services. On this basis, number portability can enhance users' freedom of choice and force operators to improve service quality to retain customers." said Ma Jihua, a senior analyst in the communications industry.
With the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the promotion of the three major operators, number portability has also made significant progress in my country. According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the first quarter of 2022, the number of number portability users nationwide exceeded 57 million.
However, during this period, issues related to number portability have appeared in the newspapers from time to time. In August 2022, the "Analysis of Complaints Received by National Consumer Associations in the First Half of 2022" released by the China Consumers Association also mentioned users' complaints about issues related to "number portability", that is, operators artificially set up obstacles to network portability, and consumers had "many difficulties" in portability: such as requiring consumers to go to designated business halls to handle it, setting an ultra-long contract period of more than 20 years and stipulating that the network cannot be ported during the contract period. On Heimao Complaints, as of press time, there were 17,531 complaints related to number portability. Among them, China Mobile involved 6,207 lawsuits, China Unicom involved 6,502 lawsuits, and China Telecom involved 3,545 lawsuits.
In March 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued relevant opinions, clearly proposing to deepen the standardization of the "number portability" business, and not to add handling conditions without authorization, set up artificial obstacles, or use "number portability" to implement vicious competition. In November of that year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued another notice stating that telecommunications business operators should follow the principles of convenience for users, fairness, honesty and trustworthiness, and coordination and cooperation to provide users with high-quality number portability services. Relevant law enforcement is also ongoing.
However, the relevant problems have not been completely curbed. In 2020, when the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized an investigation into violations of "number portability" in some provinces, it pointed out that some companies regarded number portability as a competitive business. The fundamental reason was that the companies failed to fulfill their main responsibilities, implement management regulations, and implement them poorly at the grassroots level.
Ma Jihua analyzed that in the actual operation of number portability, due to the KPI assessment of grassroots operating units, the three operators were not very active in number portability, "especially the lingering fear of porting out, which led to some intentional or unintentional obstacles."
At present, the growth of mobile users is slowing down, the market is becoming increasingly saturated, and operators continue to compete fiercely. Taking China Mobile as an example, from 2018 to 2023, its mobile customer numbers will be 925 million, 950 million, 942 million, 957 million, 975 million, and 991 million, respectively, and the annual net increase in customers will be 38 million, 25 million, -8.36 million, 14.97 million, 18.11 million, and 15.99 million, respectively. Although the number of mobile customers is still growing overall, the annual net increase in customers is generally showing a slowing downward trend. The same is true for the other two operators.
It is worth noting that after the national number portability service was officially launched in November 2019, data showed that in 2020, the number of China Unicom's mobile users decreased by 12.664 million, the number of China Mobile's mobile users decreased by 8.36 million, and China Telecom's net increase in users was 15.45 million that year. To some extent, this reflects the trend that users of China Mobile and China Unicom prefer to "port their number" to China Telecom during this period.
Changes in the number of China Mobile's mobile customers in recent years. Data source: Beijing News Shell Finance reporter sorted out the group's public operating data
Changes in the number of China Telecom's mobile customers in recent years. Data source: Beijing News Shell Finance reporter sorted out the group's public operating data
Changes in the number of China Unicom's mobile customers in recent years. Data source: Beijing News Shell Finance reporter sorted out the group's public operating data
Li Yuan analyzed from a legal perspective that the main reason for the continued existence of the above problems is the inadequate implementation of the policies. "To solve this problem, on the one hand, the operators themselves should attach importance to compliance operations and formulate service procedures in strict accordance with the number portability service details filed with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to form a healthy competition situation. On the other hand, consumers should also strive for their legitimate rights and interests in the process of number portability, refuse unreasonable requests from operators on the premise of understanding relevant policies, and do not give up the right to complain or report when necessary."
Ma Jihua mentioned that the enthusiasm for the number portability policy has cooled down. In the past few years, users who really need to port their numbers have basically completed the conversion. Many users now have multiple card numbers, and number portability will enter a stable period in the future.
"With the popularization of smart phones, the mobile market has changed from an incremental market to a stock market. If it wants to continue to develop, it is necessary to open up the previous number segment barriers and allow the number segments to flow freely. If companies want to win the market, they will ultimately have to rely on service quality and price discounts, rather than on 'holding on to users'," said Zhu Wei.
Sun Wenxuan, financial reporter of Beijing News Shell
Editor: Yue Caizhou
Proofread by Jianing
