Cheer New year with Mobile Number Portability 
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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Wednesday announced that mobile number portability (MNP),allows customers to switch operators but retain their numbers,will kick in
from December 31 across the metros and category A circles, such as Tamil Nadu and Karnataka,
while the rest of the country will have access to the facility from March 31, 2010
MNP allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone number when they move from one service provider to another in a licensed service area, irrespective of the mobile technology. It is thus a highly consumer-friendly initiative as it helps increase competition between service providers, catalysing improved quality of service.
COAI director general T V Ramachandran admitted
Implementing MNP by December 31 will be a real challenge as there are many unresolved issues,
According to the regulations, MNP will be available only within a given licensed service area.
Any subscriber is eligible to make a porting request but only 90 days after the date of activation of the connection.
While mobile number portability will be available only within a given licensed service area, however,
if a number is already ported once, the number can be ported again only after 90 days from the date of the previous porting. Subscribers must approach the recipient operator and pay the porting charges, if any.
The subscriber making the porting request has to give an undertaking that all billed dues to the donor operator have been paid as on the date of the request for porting, that he shall pay dues to the donor operator till the eventual porting of the number and that he understands and agrees that in event of non-payment of any such dues, the ported mobile number is liable to be disconnected by the recipient operator. While a subscriber can withdraw his porting request within 24 hours of its submission to the recipient operator, the porting charges will not be refundable.
Limitations to MNP * Consumers allowed to switch operators only 90 days after a connection is activated
* Consumers allowed to change operators within their registered circle only (i.e. if you are within the Maharashtra circle you can’t shift to a Karnataka circle and so on)
The good part though is that the period of switching between one operator to another has been kept at a maximum of 4 days which seems reasonable barring regions like J&K, Assam and north east circles where the period is 12 days.
Charges of MNP
Trai had issued draft guidelines on MNP in July this year but there has been no information on the charges to shift one’s operator.
There has been speculation though which has ranged around 300 rupees.Even now with the implementation announced in December there is no information of what it would cost the subscriber to shift from one operator to another.
But one thing is for sure that subscribers will have to pay operators non-refundable porting charges for shifting their number.
Cheer New year with Mobile Number Portability 
Re: Cheer New year with Mobile Number Portability 
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds;
