Mobile no. portability: Trai seeks industry views

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has sought the opinion of industry and other stakeholders on mbile number portability charges, which will decide what ervice providers and a customer should pay for switching operators.

Mobile number portability is a service that allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile number when they switch from one service provider to another or from one technology to another of the same service provider.

The regulator on Wednesday brought out a consultation paper seeking opinion as to how much the telecom operators or the MNP service provider will have to pay for porting number and has sought inputs on the issues involved in determining these charges, Trai said.

The department of telecommunications had issued guidelines for MNP implementation in the country on August 2008. Subsequently, the DoT issued licences to two companies each serving a separate zone in the country.

As per the service licence, three types of charges, including Per Port Transaction charge, which means the charge payable by the Recipient Operator (the operator, where the subscriber is willing to port his number) to the MNP service provider for processing the request, are applicable in case of MNP.

The second charge is porting charge -- the charge payable by the subscriber for porting his number -- and the third is dipping charge.

In the consultation paper various issues such as the role and functions of MNP operator, the network elements involved in the MNP process, estimation of subscriber base, MNP related cost details and estimated number of porting subscribers submitted by MNP service providers, information about implementation of MNP in different countries along with the porting fee charged there, have been discussed.

Trai has asked the industry to give their comments on this consultation paper by August 5, 2009.