Pan India Mobile Number Portability: Mobile subscribers from May 3 will be able to port their numbers anywhere in the country while changing service providers, as telecom regulator Trai has amended the regulation on it. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India amended the mobile number portability (MNP) regulations on Wednesday to allow users to change their service provider in any part of the country while retaining the number.

Pan-India Mobile Number Portability:

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is a facility which allows you to move to another operator from your existing operator while retaining your existing operator’s mobile number. MNP is applicable for porting between mobile operators only, in the same telecom Circle. Also, by regulation, customer can port-into another operator only if he/she has been with that operator for at least 90 days.

Now the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has said that starting May 3, mobile users will be able to avail themselves of full mobile number portability (MNP) in any part of the country.

A person, for instance, while shifting from Delhi to Chennai will be able to retain the same mobile number while selecting a service provider.

At present, a customer is allowed to retain a number in the same circle or within a State. During the partial mobile number portability (within one circle), 142.98 million subscribers had submitted their requests for MNP as of December.

In December alone there were 3.49 million requests for MNP. According to TRAI, as of December, there are 943.97 million mobile subscribers in India, out of which the number of active wireless subscribers on the date of peak visitor location register in December was 833.02 million (88.25 per cent of the total wireless subscriber base).

TRAI allows Pan-India Mobile Number Portability from May 3:

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had released recommendations for Pan-India Mobile Number Portability (MNP) back in September 2013. At that time it said that it would recommend 6 months for the operators to roll out full MNP across the country.

Later on 3rd November it had issued amendment to implement Full MNP in the country in 6 months from the date of amendment, i.e 3rd May. Today it has made some changes to it and issued a 6th amendment to the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009.

This facility was to be launched by April 2014 but was delayed after telecom companies sought more time. On Wednesday, TRAI ordered operators to implement it by May 3. However, the telecom companies are still not sure if they can meet the deadline.

TRAI has also issues new rule regarding MNP porting for post-paid customers and has reduced disconnected numbers to return to original service provider from 90 days to 60 days. Regarding this TRAI said,