Kenyan mobile network, Safaricom is being sued by seven of its customers after they claimed that delays in mobile number portability requests resulted in losses to their businesses. Various media reports from Kenya indicate the seven claim that their mobile numbers had been ported but were either fully or partially deactivated on various dates - which they say resulted in lost business. "The actions of the defendant are unconstitutional, unlawful and meant to force the plaintiff to remain in the defendant's mobile network thereby depriving them their constitutionally protected freedom of consumer choice," lawyers of the plaintiffs said. The launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Kenya has been troubled with allegations flying between the operators and the independent clearing house, Porting Access Kenya. Earlier this month, Porting Access Kenya claimed that the bulk of the delays were due to problems at Safaricom, but the operator has vehemently denied that claim. Safaricom later responded by suing the Porting Access for libel. The telecoms regulator, Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) has since stepped into the dispute and is trying to settle the technical difficulties in managing the service. Meanwhile Ghana is gearing up for MNP from July 1, 2011 and all the telecom operators in Ghana have sufficiently assured customers that they would exercise integrity and not sabotage customers porting out of their network. The regulator, National Communication Authority (NCA) has announced that there are clear sanctions for any attempt by a service provider to prevent any subscriber from porting after one has made a porting request. The NCA has assured that public that the problems in Kenya right now may have been due to lack of adequate preparations, but in Ghana the NCA, the operators and Porting Access Ghana have gone through rigorous pre-testing to ensure a smooth take off come July 1, 2011. The NCA has also trained staff to man a desk at the central database and ensure sanity in the process. Porting Access Ghana (PXS) has stated that unlike in Kenya, all the six operators in Ghana have been ‘fantastically cooperative’ and they have all completed manual tests and connected their Virtual Private Networks (VNPs) to the PXS’s central database. Some of the individual telecom operators like Vodafone and MTN have also announced their preparedness to start MNP now, indicating how ready they are on all fronts. They have both assured customers of smooth porting experiences. Story by: Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Adom News/Ghana