TRAI recommends mobile number portability across the country within six months

26 Sep 2013 Evaluate

Going a step further to the telecom revolution, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended implementation of mobile number portability across the country within six months. The government had allowed mobile number portability (MNP) within the same circle in January 2011 and presently MNP is available within the same service area only, but once the new directive comes into effect, this will allow users to retain their mobile numbers even when they shift their service area. 

Earlier this year in February, TRAI sought comments from stakeholders on the method that should be adopted and amendments required in the existing licence conditions of the MNP service licence, issues relating to processing of porting request, routing and charging of calls, method for implementing inter-service area porting, among various other matters. After analysis of the inputs received, extensive deliberations with the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) and internal analysis, TRAI has finalised a method for processing cross-circle porting requests after holding consultations with the industry. Accordingly, a carrier that receives a porting request from a circle, for instance, Delhi, forwards it to the MNP provider that oversees this circle. Future porting requests of this number that may be within a circle or to another circle will be handled by the same MNP provider.

Under this approach, no interconnection between the MNP providers is required, leading to minimal costs for installing this system. TRAI has recommended that Department of Telecom (DoT) may carry out the necessary changes in the existing MNP service licence to facilitate inter-service area porting or full MNP. During the consultation process, TSPs have requested to waive the testing fee by the Department of Telecommunications for acceptance tests to be conducted for implementation of full MNP, following which TRAI recommended that the DoT may consider the request of the operators and reduce acceptance testing fee to 25 percent of the current fee.

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