Nokia Sues Kenyan Number Portability Clearing House Over Unpaid Bills

Published on: 1st Jan 1970: 1:33am

­Nokia is suing the Kenyan company that is going to manage the clearing house for Mobile Number Portability next month over unpaid bills. The company, Porting Access Kenya, is being sued by four different organisations and people over the unpaid bills which amount to nearly US$4 million.

According to court documents seen by the Nairobi Star, Nokia is the lead plaintif and is suing for Sh290 million (US$3.7 million), while Daima Bank wants Sh12 million, businessman Sanjeet Thethy Sh54 million which includes interest and lawyer Njeri Onyango Sh3.5 million.

Responding to the Nokia lawsuit, "the defendant categorically denies that the said supplied goods were valued or amounted to US$ 3.7 million," states Musimba in an affidavit to the court.

Porting Access won the tender to manage the MNP clearing house out of seven firms that tendered and will charge a fee of Sh200 per number ported.

Launching MNP in Kenya has had a troubled history. The plans, originally announced in 2004 were put on hold in 2007 after the regulator cited the high costs of implementing the system. They were then resurrected in late 2008 for launch between March and September 2009. Due to be offered by July, the deadline was pushed back to the end of 2010, and now to April 2011.

The Mobile World subscriber database reports that Safaricom is the market leader with a market share of 82% with Zain coming in at 11.3%. Newer entrants, Econet had 2.3% of the market while Orange (Telecom Kenya) had 4.1% of the market.

On the web: Nairobi Star - Mobile World

 

Tags: [mobile number portability]  [mnp]  [porting access kenya]  [nokia]  [court]  [Kenya]