MNP kicks off in Haryana today

Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which will allow subscribers to change their service providers while retaining their numbers, will finally see the light of the day when it kicks off in Haryana tomorrow.

The mobile subscribers in Haryana will have to pay Rs 19 to switch between operators present in the state.

MNP will be implemented in the rest of the country by December or January. The all India launch date is still not fixed due to differences between the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the GSM mobile industry.

While DoT is adamant over the launch of MNP by December 20, GSM companies have been asking to postpone the date by a month to January 20. Even if DoT gave in to the demand of GSM companies, MNP would be implemented in the rest of the country by the end of January, a senior official from the ministry said.

A mobile subscriber will have to put in request with the recipient (new) operator for porting his number. The process will take two to three working days and the subscriber will be allowed to cancel his request to port within 24 hours. There will be a blackout period of two hours while completing the request. Once ported, a subscriber will not be allowed to switch operators before 90 days.

A post-paid customer has to clear all dues with the existing operator to make the switch. In case of a pre-paid subscriber, the balance will not be carried forward.

The deadline for the launch of MNP has already been missed thrice. Earlier, it was slated to start from October 31 this year, while the first launch date was fixed as December 31, 2009, in the metros and category-A circles, while the rest of the country was slated to have this platform by April 1, 2010.

The main reason for the delay has been similar throughout — the operators were not ready as they were still testing their networks. The second reason was the uncertainty over the fate of Telcordia — one of the two companies which was given the mandate to implement MNP. The company’s proposal has now been cleared by the home ministry. Another reason was delay in FIPB clearance which had got stuck on security issues.