Mobile customers of Uninor, MTS India, Videocon and some others operators whose licenses were canceled by Supreme Court on February 2, 2012 in many circles and they failed to get fresh spectrum for respective circles, will no longer be able to port out from closed networks by opting Mobile Number Portability.
India's telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has issued directive to all existing mobile service providers to stop accepting porting request of mobile numbers that were allocated to telecom companies whose licenses to operate stands cancelled as per Supreme Court order.
TRAI said that "all the Mobile Number Portability service providers not to process and all the Unified Access Service Providers (telecom operators)…not to entertain request for porting in respect of mobile telephone numbers belonging to the service providers."
TRAI has asked to stop accepting porting request from Tata Teleservices (3 service area), Uninor (15 service area), Videocon (11 service area), Loop Telecom (13 service area), Etisalat DB known as Cheers Mobile (15 service area), S Tel (5 service area) and SSTL -MTS India (10 service area) where the companies lost their licences and failed to get fresh spectrum in recent auction.
According to TRAI :
- A MNP request can be processed only when the number is on active network.
- As per Mobile Number Portability (MNP) rules, "the licensee (MNP operators) shall in no case provide MNP service to any telecom service provider whose licence is either terminated or suspended or not in operation at any point.
Note : SSTL / MTS India has made a request to Department of Telecom (DoT) to allow continue operation for 30 days from 11th March, 2013 for enabling customers to port out in all circles wherein they failed to get fresh spectrum / license to continue.
