11 million ride the MNP wave since launch

Eight months following the launch of mobile number portability (MNP), 11 million mobile subscribers are said to have availed the facility to change telecom operators.

MNP requests have crossed 11 million from 8.5 million in April with maximum users availing MNP to switch from CDMA to GSM platform, reports.

Reliance Communications has lost the most users, more than 6 lakh from Reliance CDMA and 4.5 lakh from Reliance GSM have requested to exit from the RCom network.
 
In case of Tata Teleservices (TTSL), 4.5 lakh customers on its CDMA network have exited the services. The operator though has seen a rise in GSM subscribers with more than 1.5 lakh users joining in through MNP.

Anurag Prashar, RCom president, corporate and wireless - customer service, said that the users moving out through MNP contribute very little to the company's revenues.

"[Out of] over 25 per cent of customers porting out, half are contributing nothing to the company's revenues, while the other 50 per cent are of category where average revenue per user [ARPU] is less than Rs50," he told PTI.

Prashar added that the company was focussing on the post paid category where it is gaining customers.

Meanwhile, Vodafone is the biggest gainer of the lot, gaining over 1 million customers through the MNP facility.

GSM players, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel have also seen unsatisfied customers joining their network.

Close to 8.7 lakh customers have requested to shift to Idea, about 6.3 lakh customers have opted for Bharti Airtel's network while 73,000 customers have chosen to shift alliances to Aircel, reports said.