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Press Information Bureau
Government of India |
| Wednesday, September 23, 2009 | |||||
| Ministry of Communications & Information Technology | |||||
TRAI ISSUES TELECOMMUNICATION MNP REGULATIONS, 2009 |
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| 17:21 IST | |||||
| The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has today issued the “Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009”. Through these regulations, the Authority is laying down the basic business process framework for implementation of MNP in the country. The regulations which seek to provide a framework governing all relevant aspects of MNP involve laying down the clear eligibility conditions for porting of mobile telephone numbers and the procedure to be followed by each player in the chain in processing number porting request. Defining rights and obligations of various stakeholders, specifying clear time limits for completion of various steps by each player in the chain i.e. the Donor Operator, Recipient Operator and the MNP service provider as well as envisaging least disruption of service to the consumer are also provided in the regulations. The salient features of the MNP under these regulations are: i MNP facility shall be available only within a given licensed service area. ii A subscriber holding a mobile number is eligible to make a porting request only after 90 days of the date of activation of his mobile connection. If a number is already ported once, the number can again be ported only after 90 days from the date of the previous porting. iii The subscriber who wishes to port his mobile number should approach the Recipient operator (the operator to whom the subscriber wants to port his number). The Subscriber may be required to pay porting charges, if any, to the Recipient Operator. iv The subscriber making the porting request is required to have cleared all the bills issued prior to the date of porting request. He shall give an undertaking that he has already paid all billed dues to the Donor Operator as on the date of the request for porting and that he shall pay dues to the Donor Operator pertaining to the mobile number till its eventual porting and that he understands and agrees that in event of non-payment of any such dues to the Donor Operator, the ported mobile number shall be liable to be disconnected by the Recipient Operator. v A subscriber may withdraw his porting request within 24 hours of its submission to the Recipient Operator. However, the porting charges shall not be refundable. vi The regulation envisage a maximum time period of 4 days for the completion of porting process in all licensed service areas except in the case of J&K, Assam and North East licensed service areas where the maximum time allowed is 12 days. However, efforts will be made to further reduce the porting period. vii Access Providers are required to implement All Call Query method. viii The Originating operator shall be responsible to route the call to correct terminating network. TRAI placed the draft regulations on the subject on its website on 27th June 2009 for consultation with the stakeholders. Comments of stakeholders on the draft regulations were solicited by 14th July 2009. Written comments of stakeholders were also posted on TRAI’s website. Open House Discussions were also held with stakeholders in Delhi on 27th July 2009 and the stakeholders were requested to send further comments, if any, by 31st July, 2009. After careful analysis of the views of the stakeholders expressed both in their written comments and in the Open House, the Authority has framed the present regulations. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allows the subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone number when they move from one Access Provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same Access Provider, in a licensed service area. The facility of retention of existing mobile telephone number despite moving to a new telecom service provider helps the subscriber maintain contacts with his friends/clientele. Introduction of MNP also helps in increasing competition between the service providers and acts as a catalyst for the service providers to improve their quality of service. As decided by Government, MNP shall be implemented wef. 31st December 2009 in Metros & category ‘A’ service areas and by 20th March 2010 in rest of the country. |
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