 "TRAI recommends 'One nation, one number' in six months")
The much-awaited nationwide mobile number portability (MNP) is set to be true within the next six months when mobile users would be able to retain their numbers even if they relocate from one telecom circle to another. Added to this, when travelling out of their home city, mobile users would not even have to shell out the hefty roaming charges that swell their bills.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday, recommended that the national mobile number portability (MNP) should be fully implemented across the country within six months allowing subscribers to retain their numbers even when they shift from one service area to another. At present, MNP is available only within the service area of a mobile subscriber.
“After an examination of various issues, TRAI today released the recommendations on full MNP,” the regulator said in a statement, on Wednesday. Telecom service providers will be given six month for the implementation of full MNP, it added.
“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 service areas (LSA) 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 stated in its recommendation.
The regulator has recommended that the 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% of the current fee,” the regulator said.
According to TRAI, as most service providers were of the view that STD rates have plummeted to almost the same level as local call rates, “the onus should lie on the calling party to bear the STD charges, if applicable,” it added.
Earlier, operators have repeatedly said that they would require around USD 10 million to build the enabling structure for nationwide MNP. The service would help pan-Indian players gain subscribers at the cost of the operators whose customers relocate to states they are not present in.
According to industry data, free roaming is likely to benefit over 12% of mobile users. But operators’ bottom lines would be impacted, as they would pay the national long-distance cost.
Hemant Joshi, Partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, said that the nation-wide MNP would not impact much other than few people who will migrate. “India being mostly a prepaid market, full MNP is not going to impact a lot and hence operators are not much worried. There will be no significant impact on the revenues of the operators.”