Mobile Number Portibility

What is MNP?

Mobile Number portability (MNP) enables mobile subscribers to change their service providers or their location without having to change their existing phone numbers. If the subscribers are not satisfied with the services of their service provider, they can change their service provider while retaining the existing phone number.

Though Telecom Regulatory has made it clear that mobile number portability (MNP) will be implemented nationwide from October 31, as announced earlier, ruling out any further delay Major service provider  except BSNL are still reluctant to implement it.

Why Service providers are against it ?

Once MNP will be implemented in Indian scenario it will infuse huge  competition among service providers and forces them to improve their service standards to check subscriber churn. Many countries have made number portability mandatory to liberalize competition But countries like india are still in the process of implementing it.Major concerns of service providers are such as-

Implementation cost would be very high –

 Porting mobile numbers is not as simple as pushing a button. There is a lot that has to happen behind the scenes to allow for it. Expensive equipment, logistics on a mind-boggling scale, and ensuring checks-and-balances by appointing a third-party company to carry out these operations on behalf of both (originating and destination) operators.

Churn rate Fear –

The so-called "incumbent" mobile telephony operators have been in the space for a long time. The number of dis-satisfied users are inevitably in direct proportion. When new companies enter the mobile operator space, they have nothing to lose (atleast at first) with MNP. Those operators who have been around longer, fear losing existing customers, with good reason.

Even if MNP will be implemented in India in a near future there will be still lots of issue that TRAI has to look into in order to give subscriber real benefit from this service like –

Simplicity involved in changing the operator – the process of changing the operator while keeping the same number should be very simple. There should not be any hidden rule like one can’t change his number within  intial 1 year of subscription.

Low Cost to Consumer – The cost of MNP cost should be not very high but if the service will be free of cost then it can increase the churn rate upto a great extent.

Speed – Major question that needs to be answered how fast the subscriber would be able to use the service of other operator. Time to port the number for one network to another take different time in different countries like in France it takes 30 days where as in US it takes less than 1 hr. So speed will be one of the major factor in implementing the MNP in india.