Finally the long wait will come to an end next month !!!

Mobile Number Portability from Nov. 1 !!!

Finally the long wait will come to an end next month. Yes, the Mobile Number Portability would be made available from Nov 1 onwards said Indian Telecom Minister A. Raja reported The Hindu. After the recent announcement of 3G services by the mobile operators, the Mobile Number Portability's arrival surely promises pleasant days ahead. 

A. Raja, Telecom Minister for India, said, "November 1 onwards MNP would be operational partially... We wanted to inaugurate it in Haryana."

Mobile Number Portability facility will let mobile phone subscribers to retain their ten digit phone numbers if they wish to go for different or any mobile operator's service. For instance, if you are Airtel subscriber, then you can retain your number after applying for MNP and change to any other cellular service you want. 

Under the MNP process, users will have to apply for number portability and pay nominal fees to retain their ten digit phone number. Licences have been given to Syniverse Technologies and MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions, a 74:26 joint venture between U.S.-based Telcordia and Deepak Talwar Consultants, to implement MNP in India.

Mobile Number Portability will be rolled out in phases in different regions. Stay tuned for more updates on the MNP facility rollout and other details. 

We've noted that few mobile operators have started requesting documents for re-verification and identification. This is applicable to all mobile phone owners who've bought GSM or CDMA connection before Jan 1 this year. 

Several consumers have started receiving emails to send across their document copies again. Here's the snippet from the email:

Dear Customer,

In view of the current law and order environment, the Government of India has advised us to update/re-verify the identities and addresses of our customers who have taken their mobile connections before 1st January 2010 (Please refer to ad released in Times of India on 16th September 2010). Therefore, we request you to submit your recent verification documents at any of the document collection centres within next 3 days.

We value our relationship and your prompt response will allow us to continue with the same without disruption.

In case, if we do not get your documents in next 3 days, we will be bound to suspend your service till proper documents are received.

We'd like to apologize and say that pleasant days of using mobile connection aren't here just yet. We're sure many would have to under go loads of issues related to document re-submissions. However, the three day deadline is way too short. 

Its for your consideration  : 

Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

MNP is implemented in different ways across the globe. The international and European standard is for a customer wishing to port his/her number to contact the new provider (Recipient) who will then arrange necessary process with the old provider (Donor). This is also known as 'Recipient-Led' porting. The UK is the only country to not implement a Recipient-Led system, where a customer wishing to port his/her number is required to contact the Donor to obtain a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) which he/she then has to give to the Recipient. Once having received the PAC the Recipient continues the port process by contacting the Donor. This form of porting is also known as 'Donor-Led' and has been criticised by some industry analysts as being inefficient. It has also been observed that it may act as a customer deterrent as well as allowing the Donor an opportunity of 'winning-back' the customer. This might lead to distortion of competition, especially in the markets with new entrants that are yet to achieve scalability of operation.

Technical Details :

A significant technical aspect of MNP (Mobile Number Portability) is related to the routing of calls or mobile messages (SMS, MMS) to a number once it has been ported. There are various flavours of call routing implementation across the globe but the international and European best practice is via the use of a central database (CDB) of ported numbers. Network operator makes copies of CDB and queries it to find out which network to send a call to.

 This is also known as All Call Query (ACQ) and is highly efficient and scalable. Majority of the established and upcoming MNP systems across the world are based on this ACQ/CDB method of call routing. One of the very few countries to not use ACQ/CDB is the UK where calls to a number once it has been ported are still routed via the Donor network. This is also known as 'Indirect Routing' and is highly inefficient as it is wasteful of transmission and switching capacity. Because of its Donor dependent nature, Indirect Routing also means that if the Donor network develops a fault or goes out of business, the customers who have ported out of that network will lose incoming calls to their numbers. 

The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom completed its extended review of the UK MNP process on 29 November 2007 and mandated that ACQ/CDB be implemented for mobile to mobile ported calls by no later than 1 September 2009, and for all other (fixed and mobile) ported calls by no later than ( 31 December 2012.)  :)