The TRAI today issued draft Regulations to facilitate Mobile Number Portability (MNP) implementation in the country. The draft regulations lay down the business process for implementing mobile number portability.
The important points covered in the draft include Subscriber’s eligibility conditions for porting, Rights, obligations and duties of service providers; Rights, obligations and duties of Donor operator where the subscriber exists before porting; Rights, obligations and duties of recipient operator where the subscriber moves after porting.
Rights, obligations and duties of Mobile Number Portability Service Provider (MNPSP) who facilitates the mobile number portability through its clearing house and Number portability Database centre and Porting Process guidelines which describe the entire porting process right from the time subscriber requests for porting his mobile number till the porting takes place.
In March 2006, the Authority had recommended implementation of MNP in the whole country in a phased manner, starting from Metros and A category service areas followed by B and C category service areas. DoT accepted the recommendations of the Authority including formation of a Steering Committee under the aegis of TRAI, to deliberate upon various issues involved in the implementation of MNP in the country. A Steering Committee was constituted consisting of representatives from TEC, Service Providers and their Associations that submitted its report to DoT for initiating the process for selection of MNP operator.
Subsequently, the DOT issued guidelines for MNP service license on 1st August 2008. The DoT guidelines envisaged geographical division of the country into two Number Portability Zones (zone 1 & zone 2), each consisting of 11 licensed service areas. Subsequently, one operator in each zone was selected (M/s Syniverse Technologies(I) Pvt. Ltd was granted licence for operating in Zone 1 (Northern and Western India) and M/s MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions(I) Pvt. Ltd was granted licence for MNP Service Zone 2(Eastern and Southern India)), based on the selection parameters set in the guidelines for MNP service license.
The DoT has granted license to these MNP service providers on 20th March, 2009 and TRAI is formulating business process for implementation of MNP in the country. TRAI will bring a consultation paper on Per port transaction charges and dipping charges shortly. TRAI solicits comments from the stakeholders on these draft regulations by 14th July 2009. The draft regulations are available on TRAI’s website www.trai.gov.in
