Trai wants telcos to bear number portability cost

The telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), wants service providers to bear the cost of supporting mobile number portability (MNP), a move which operators say is heavily loaded against them and will benefit MNP operators only.

The regulator has sought stakeholders’ opinion through a consultation paper by tomorrow on MNP charges, which will decide what the customer has to pay.

“It, therefore, follows that the recipient operator shall not charge any additional fee for porting-in the mobile number of the subscriber other than the ‘porting charge’,” according to the consultation paper.

This porting charge shall not be more than the “per port (of) transaction charge” to be paid by the operator to the MNP service provider, which will be determined by Trai after the consultation process, the paper says.

The regulator has said if an operator does not give its response by July 17, it will be presumed that it (the operator) agrees with the suggestions. Some GSM operators have said this will benefit MNP operators.

Syniverse and Telcordia-backed MNP Interconnect are the two managers of mobile number portability in the country. An official of the operators’ association Cellular Operators Association of India said the body will oppose the Trai suggestions and seek discussions with the regulator.

These are commercial issues and a lot of cost is involved. MNP is just another service — so why should the cost be unevenly tilted against the mobile operators’ interests, the official said.

DoT had earlier set September as the deadline for the first phase rollout of MNP in the country.

Trai last month issued draft regulations to facilitate MNP implementation. According to these, a mobile subscriber becomes eligible for portability 90 days after his/her connection is activated.