This year has been a bumpy ride for the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the consumers of the telecom industry. The telecom operators have also faced the waves of changing regulations on many fronts this year. But, with so many changes already underway, this wave of regulatory amendments does not seem to be stopping anytime soon. The next in line of the regulatory changes that Trai is working on is Mobile Number Portability (MNP). The portability rules in the industry have been under discussion for long now, and last year, Trai finalised some of these rules. The new regulations which govern this process bring some much-needed change for the subscribers in the MNP department. However, the next question is when are the new rules going to be implemented so that the consumers get to experience better and faster MNP. Here is what the latest Trai update says about it.
Delay in Timeline for Implementation of New Mobile Number Portability Rules
As per the news floating in the industry before, Trai was supposed to bring these new rules into play in the second week of November, or specifically on November 10. However, there seems to be a new turn in the plan. The previous information had pointed out that there would be a transition period between November 4 and November 10, in which the consumers would not be able to port their SIMs to other networks. They would basically not be able to generate the porting code for their number. After this transition period, on November 11, the new MNP rules would go into effect. But, in a new Trai notification, all of this information has been negated and scraped. The sector regulator has said that there would be no transition period for the subscribers and people wishing to port their SIM from one operator to another would be able to do so without any hindrance. Trai has also said that the date for the implementation of the new MNP rules is not yet decided and that it would be informed on a later stage.
New Implementation Delayed Because of Technical Glitch
Now Trai has not simply delayed the timeline for the implementation of the new MNP regime. But, the sector watchdog has also given a reason for the same. The telecom regulator has been keen on the idea that robust testing should be conducted on every point for a smooth implementation of the new MNP rules. This involves proper technological support from the MNP service providers and the telecom operators, both of which are critical links the entire MNP process. Hence, Trai has noted that because of some technical issues at the end of telecom operators, the new rules are not being rolled out on November 10.
Adding to this, Trai noted “Accordingly, the date of implementation of Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018, needs to be postponed. The exact date will be notified in due course of time. The porting of mobile numbers will, therefore, continue in accordance with the existing MNP process and will not be affected during 4th to 10th November 2019.”
New Rules to Bring Positive Changes to MNP Process
The subscribers wishing to port their numbers should know that the new rules bring positive changes for the MNP process. The entire process which used to take 7 days, will now be cut down to two days only thus shrinking the time taken to port the SIM down by 5 days. Similarly, the inter circle porting between two circles would happen only in 5 days with the new rules in effect.
