Mobile Number Portability (MNP) launch delayed with new deadline

Oct 31 (FLS): Department of Telecommunications (DoT) said on Sunday that the subscribers can apply from 25 November for the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service, which will allow them to change the service provider without changing their number, delaying the service which was expected to hit the nation on November 1st 2010.

Sources in the Department of Telecom have reported that operator’s networks are ready and have been tested fully. Source also confirmed that the application forms of subscribers will be accepted from 25 November and the government will come out with detailed guidelines and advertisements in this regard in the first week of this month.

The MNP service will be first rolled in Haryana Licensed Service Area on November 25, 2010 and will be later extended to other circles in next few months.

As per the statement released, customers who want to change to change their service provider without changing their number will have to send an SMS from their phone to 1900. Based on this they will get a unique porting code as SMS from the existing service provider.

Then the customer will be required to fill in an application in the prescribed form mentioning the code to the selected new service provider for transferring the number. Within a period of four days the number will be transferred to the network of the new service provider.

Deadline for implementing MNP has been extended a number of times. The first deadline for MNP was December, 2009. It was extended to March, 2010 as operators were not ready for it. Later it was extended to June 30, 2010. The deadline was further extended to October 31.

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