Anyone who has ever tried to go through the mobile number portability process knows what hassle a person has to put up with to get their numbers transitioned to another operator. Trai finally is looking into a solution to relieve the customers of their woes related to the portability issue. A consultation paper is under speculation which will be released by the Trai. The paper is said to look into the prospects of reduction of time that the authorities take to make the transition from one network to the other, under the MNP. RS Sharma, who is chairman at Telecom Regulatory Authority of India also shared his insights on the same, saying ‘We will be bringing a consultation paper on expediting MNP. Today, the process takes time. The consultation paper will be aimed at reducing that time and changing the processes. We are currently working on it and will issue it by the month-end,' Sharma said.
This consultation paper which is expected to come out at the end of this month also seeks to slash prices for the mobile portability function. This news was first reported by PTI. This radical change in the pricing states that the MNP charges will be cut down even further. Recently, the Trai has brought down the MNP charges to a mere Rs 4 from the earlier Rs 19. How much will Trai reduce the MNP reduce? Completely scrap the MNP charges? We have to wait a while to know more.
Trai is set to look for ways under this review proposal on how the process can be made easier, simpler and much more streamlined to make it faster and also cheaper for the public. It is painful for the public to see that the portability process which takes seven days in India gets completed in a matter of few hours in rest of the world. Seven days is alright if the service transition happens smoothly, but that's not the case as the network on current operator will go away, and the network on the new operator doesn't appear for a few more days. This has been the case with many customers. Personally, I have experienced the issue, and I had to visit the nearest operator store to get the job done.
Trai hopes to bridge the gap which has been existent for so long in the technology and also deems it as a chance to better the customer experience for MNP.
MNP – Mobile Number Portability is a feature whereby consumers can change their telecom operators without actually changing their numbers. The technology allows the number to shift to another network easily.
In today’s time where companies like Aircel are vanishing and leaving their customers without any service, tools like number portability often come to rescue. Also, seeing that telcos are launching new and attractive plans for their users daily, functionalities like MNP opens doors for people looking to get better plans from other operators. Considering such situations Trai’s step of improving portability services definitely is the right call of the time.
