The subscribers in the telecom industry who have ported a SIM know that currently the porting process has been designed such that it takes at least seven days to port a SIM from one operator to other. However, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has been working on the regulations related to Mobile Number Portability (MNP) to reduce this time required by the MNP service providers and the telecom operators, to make the process easier for the subscribers and faster as well. Although the rules have already been finalised by the telecom regulator and penned down in the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018 (9 of 2018), which was issued back in December 2018, these rules are yet to go into implementation. This means that the subscribers are not yet able to take benefit from the enhanced porting process. But, in a new notification, Trai has come up with a date for the implementation of the new MNP regime after which the subscribers will be able to enjoy faster MNP.
Trai Finishing Testing of MNP Systems
Trai in its latest notification has said that the new MNP rules would be implemented on December 16, 2019. It is worth noting that, last year, the MNP rules were finalised on December 13, 2018, and hence it has taken Trai more than a year to bring these rules into actual practice. In this period, Trai has taken its time to conduct a robust testing process with telecom operators and the MNP service providers. As per Trai, it does not want the consumers to face any hassle and is thus taking its time with the thorough testing of the technical systems and operators, which is causing the delay in the implementation of the MNP rules.
New MNP Rules to Finally Come in December
Trai noted in its release, “The status of testing has been reviewed and in view of the current status of testing, the Authority vide notification dated 8th November 2019 has extended the timeline for implementation of Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018, from 11th November 2019 to 16th December 2019 giving additional time for reconfirming the desired tests.”
Timeline of MNP Regulations Over the Last Year
It is also worth noting that according to the previous notifications of Trai, the new MNP rules were to be implemented by November 11, following a transition period from November 4 to November 10, in which the subscribers would not have been able to port their SIM from one operator to other. Trai had said that in this period, the subscribers would not be able to generate the porting code for their number. However, come November 4, Trai had then again issued a new notification in which it notified that there could be an indefinite delay in the implementation of the new MNP regime. That previous notification has been topped off by Trai as this new notification clarifies a specific date after which the telecom subscribers will be able to enjoy faster MNP process.
Benefits of the New MNP Rules
It is crucial to note that in a such a changing and competitive telecom industry, the subscribers have been lured to different telecom operators again and again, and hence the MNP process is the one that comes in handy when these subscribers want to switch from one operator to another. But, the process was lengthy and cumbersome as it took an entire week to change from one operator to another. But, after the new rules, the entire MNP process would only take two days, and for inter circle MNP, which means porting your SIM between two circles, the subscribers would only have to wait 5 days.
