New Delhi: Telecom regulator TRAI today recommended that mobile number portability (MNP) be fully implemented across the country within six months to allow subscribers to retain their numbers even when they shift from one service area to another.
Presently, Mobile Number Portability is available only within the subscribers' service area. When MNP is implemented fully, subscribers in Andhra Pradesh, for example, will be able to port their numbers to Karnataka, Maharashtra, Haryana and so on.
Earlier this year, TRAI sought comments from stakeholders on the method that should be adopted to implement full MNP and the amendments required in existing regulations, among various other matters.
"After an examination of various issues, TRAI today released the recommendations on full MNP," said a statement from the Authority. Telecom service providers will be given six month for the implementation of full MNP, it said.
The facility of pan-India portability will allow a mobile subscriber to change his licence service area (LSA) without having to change the number. TRAI said: "Implementation of full MNP would therefore mean acceptance of a porting request by the recipient operator from a mobile number belonging to any of the LSAs of the country, irrespective of the fact that the LSA from where the subscriber is porting his mobile number and the LSA to which he wants to port his number belong to the same or different MNP zones."
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. "The DoT may consider the request of the operators and reduce acceptance testing fee to 25 per cent of the current fee," the regulator said. It added that after full MNP is implemented, recipient operator will forward the porting request to the MNP service provider in whose zone the number range network belongs.
TRAI also said once full MNP is in place, subscribers should be educated to dial numbers in the 'ᄧ' format which is the standard dialling format, so that the calls get connected across the country without any trouble.
On the issue as to who will bear the STD charges while calling the number that has been ported to another service area, TRAI said most service providers were of the view that STD rates have plummeted to almost the same level as local call rates, hence, it is not a major issue.
"Therefore, the onus should lie on the calling party to bear the STD charges, if applicable," it said.
