The revamped mobile number portability (MNP) or port out rules aim to makes the entire process faster and simpler, cutting the migration process from the current seven days.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced a new date for the implementation of the revised mobile number portability (MNP) rules. These rules were declared in the last year of December, nearby other modifications within the Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Alteration) Directions, 2018 (9 of 2018). Whereas the corrections to ease portability from one telecom operator to another have been concluded, it has taken TRAI over a year to induce it implemented. The authority has directed to telecom operators for thorough testing and fix of any issue which may arise before the new MNP rules come into effect.
TRAI has circulated a press release on December 03 by stating customer will not be able to submit request for Mobile Number Portability (MNP) between December 10, 2019 to December 15, 2019 of switchover period to the new and simpler port-out regime that will be effective from December 16 2019. Under Mobile Number Portability (MNP) subscribers can switch operators without changing their mobile number.
Through these amendment regulations, a major shift in the mechanism for generating Unique Porting Code (UPC) has been provisioned. Pre-validation of eligibility conditions for porting will determine the generation of UPC by the Mobile Number Portability Service Provider (MNPSP). This shall ensure smooth porting in a new framework, thus making the porting process faster and convenient to the mobile subscribers. The validity of UPC as per the new process will be 4 days for all Telecom Circles, excluding the Telecom circles of Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, and North East, where the validity of UPC will still be 30 days.
Individual porting requests of Intra-Circle (within the same state) nature will be completed in 3 working days; whereas the porting requests of Inter-Telecom Circle (Outside of the current Telecom Circle) nature and all porting requests under corporate category (both same and other states) will be completed in 5 working days. For example – Porting request of the mobile subscriber ‘X’ (individual) of Karnataka Telecom circle who wants to change his operator within Karnataka telecom circle will be completed in 3 working days, whereas the service request of a person ‘Y’ (individual) who wishes to port his mobile number from Karnataka telecom circle to Delhi telecom circle service area will be completed in 5 days).
As per the TRAI direction, the cut-over to the new regulations will be effective from 00:00:00 hours of December 16, 2019. In the current MNP process, mobile subscribers can generate the UPC and submit their port request to the Recipient Operator of their choice till 17:59:59 hours of December 09, 2019.
No Service Period for 6 days
There will be ‘No service period‘ of 6 days for mobile number portability starting from 00:00:00 hours of December 10, 2019 till 23:59:59 hours of December 15, 2019 for all Telecom Circle. Existing active UPCs where no porting request is not submitted by the subscriber till 23:59:59 hours of December 09, 2019, will become invalid. The subscriber can attempt the UPC generation afresh after the migration to the new process starts from 00:00:00 hours of December 16, 2019.
What Will Happen For Existing Porting Requests
For all such previous requests where the subscriber submits porting requests by 23:59:59 hours of December 09, 2019 and the Donor Operator subsequently grants clearance, the porting will have to be executed in the next porting window.
New MNP Rule Defined by TRAI
Individual porting requests of Intra-Circle (within the same state) will be completed in 3 working days; whereas the porting requests of Inter-Telecom Circle (Outside of the current Telecom Circle) nature and all porting requests under corporate category (both same and other states) will be completed in 5 working days. For example – Porting request of the mobile subscriber ‘X’ (individual) of Karnataka Telecom circle who wants to change his operator within Karnataka telecom circle will be completed in 3 working days, whereas the service request of a person ‘Y’ (individual) who wishes to port his mobile number from Karnataka telecom circle to Delhi telecom circle service area will be completed in 5 days).
The validity of UPC as per the new process will be 4 days for all Telecom Circles, excluding the Telecom circles of Jammu & Kashmir, Assam, and North East, where the validity of UPC will still be 30 days.
Currently, all telecom operators are offering much-excited offers to ring-fencing their subscriber lifecycle but are completely a choice of a subscriber in terms of various offers, quality of service, network coverage and stability. The current MNP process is quite a time taking which is an approximately eight-day activity that can be quite unfavorable for subscribers.
