TRAI issues consultation paper on revamping MNP

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Friday issued a consultation paper to review the mobile number portability process to resolve inconveniences being faced by customers.

The telecom regulator in a statement said: "Due to recent closure/discontinuation of wireless access services by some of the telecom service providers (TSPs) in few or all the Licensed Service Areas (LSAs), substantial number of subscribers have been forced to port their mobile number to other TSPs.

"Consequent upon closure/discontinuation of the services, TRAI has received large number of complaints related to the difficulties faced by the subscribers of these service providers in porting their mobile numbers."

"This new paper will not only help the operators to send their detailed inputs to the Authority but it will also enable the Authority to address certain new issues which have emerged since the notification and applicability of the Regulation in the year 2009 and 2011 respectively," said Rajan S. Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators' Association of India.

He added that the ultimate goal of any regulation is to facilitate the subscribers, without putting any extra financial or operational burden on the operators.

It said the major issues are non-generation of Unique Porting Code (UPC) by the donor operator or non-receipt of UPC by the subscriber, multiple rejections of porting requests by donor operators on various grounds of rejections prescribed in regulation 12 of the MNP regulations, instances of fraudulent porting, issuance of interim bills for postpaid subscribers, non-refund of the prepaid balance and security deposits of post-paid subscribers.

"These issues create inconvenience and dissatisfaction to the mobile subscribers."

Written comments on the issues raised in the consultation are invited from the stakeholders by May 3, 2018 and counter comments by May 17, 2018.

--IANS

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