Full mobile number portability in 6 months: TRAI

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended that full mobile number portability, which would allow mobile phone users to retain their phone numbers while shifting to another operator in another part of the country, should be available within the next six months.

TRAI's recommendations, released on Wednesday, are in line with the 'One Nation-Full Mobile Number Portability' provisions of the National Telecom Policy-2012, an official release said today.

Once the full mobile number portability (inter-service area portability) is implemented the recipient operator will forward the porting request to the MNPSP of the zone to which original number range holder belongs.

Telecom service providers will be given 6 months time for implementation of full mobile number portability.

TRAI has suggested some modifications to the MNP service licence, to facilitate inter-service area porting (full MNP)

Testing fee for testing the various scenarios in full MNP is proposed to be reduced to 25 per cent of the current prescribed fee for TSPs and MNPSPs.

TRAI has given six months' time for telecom service providers to implement pan-India mobile number portability across all licensed service areas.

TRAI has also sought inputs / comments from stakeholders on various issues in the implementation of full MNP, such as suitable method for implementing inter-service area porting, issues relating to processing of porting requests, routing and charging of calls, amendments required in the existing licence conditions of the MNP service licence, generation of Unique Porting Code (UPC) by a roaming subscriber, modifications required in the present regulation etc.

TRAI released its recommendations on mobile number portability after a series of meetings to resolve differences among stake-holders. The telecom regulator also set up a focus group consisting of representatives from MNP service providers and telecom service providers to deliberate on the issue, which finally submitted its report to TRAI.

Telecom firms, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, had opposed the TRAI's recommendations, saying that only a few subscribers will benefit from full portability and, hence, it did not justify the cost they would incur in upgrading their systems.

TRAI's recommendations will have to be approved by the telecom ministry (department of telecom) before they are implemented. Full portability is part of the new telecom policy announced in 2012.