TRAI issues draft regulations on mobile number portability
30 Jun 2009
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today issued draft regulations to facilitate the implementation of mobile number portability (MNP) in the country.
The draft regulations cover subscriber's eligibility conditions for porting, rights, obligations and duties of service providers, rights/obligations/duties of donor operators where the subscriber exists before porting. It also details rights, obligations and duties of recipient operator where the subscriber moves after porting as also the rights, obligations and duties of mobile number portability service provider (MNPSP) who facilitates the mobile number portability through its clearing house.
There will be a number portability database centre and guidelines for porting process, which describe the entire process right from the time subscriber requests for porting his mobile number till the porting takes place.
TRAI had, in March 2006, recommended implementation of MNP in the whole country in a phased manner, starting from metros and `A' category service areas followed by B and C category service areas. DoT accepted the recommendations, including formation of a steering committee under the aegis of TRAI, to deliberate upon various issues involved in the implementation of MNP in the country.
DoT subsequently issued guidelines that envisaged geographical division of the country into two Number Portability Zones (zone 1 & zone 2), each consisting of 11 licensed service areas. Subsequently, one operator in each zone was selected (Syniverse Technologies(I) Pvt. Ltd was granted licence for operating in Zone 1 (Northern and Western India) and MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions(I) Pvt Ltd was granted licence for MNP Service Zone 2 (Eastern and Southern India), based on the selection parameters set in the guidelines for MNP service licence.
The DoT has granted licence to these MNP service providers on 20 March 2009 and TRAI is formulating business process for implementation of MNP in the country. TRAI will bring a consultation paper on per port transaction charges and dipping charges shortly.
TRAI has invited comments from the stakeholders on these draft regulations by 14 July 2009. The draft regulations are available on TRAI's website www.trai.gov.in.
