India Broadband Forum

Rameshjeee

Bids invited for number portability

After a series of delays, the communications ministry has got cracking on mobile number portability (MNP), which allows consumers to change their telecom operator but retain their number. Over the weekend, the Department of Telecom (DoT) invited bids from companies with worldwide experience to implement MNP in India.

According to the new timeline, the last date for the submission of bids will be February 6 and the winner will be announced on March 5. If the latest timeline is followed, customers can expect to access this facility in the second half of 2009.

DoT has also clarified to all potential bidders that the amount customers will have to pay to change their operators will be decided by Trai. In 2006, Trai had recommended that consumers pay between Rs 200 and Rs 300 every time he/she wants to change their service provider. But, DoT has now said that the regulator would specify a new port fee before MNP is introduced.

The government had approved MNP in late-2007 and said the facility would be introduced in the four metros by the second half of 2008. Since then, implementation of MNP has missed several launch dates. Number portability has so far been introduced in countries like Australia, Korea, Japan, Canada, the US, the UK, most of Europe and Pakistan. According to reports, its introduction has been followed by up to 20-50% subscribers switching operators in some of these countries.

The communications ministry has turned down demands of a few potential bidders to relax existing norms that allows only those companies to participate in the bid which have experiences in similar projects in international markets.

Besides, DoT has also added that these companies should have ported a minimum of about 25-million numbers in the markets they currently operate in. The Department has said that the list of pre-qualified bidders will be released on February 16 and selected companies will have to make presentations on rollout plans on February 23-24.

DoT will select two centralised operators who will administer and implement this service.

newprouser

I don't understand - what do they bid for ?

and all service providers have to agree if this feature is to be implemented right ?

itsmemad

Thats great news... I'm fed up of smsing my contacts to update their phone book when I change my no...

That way people have the flexibility to change to better operators... I know few friends/businessmen who never change their operator/no. for the fear of losing touch with their contacts!

Organizations bid for implementing this facility... Therez money in everything...

If TRAI/government has decided that this feature should be mandatory then service providers can't do nething...

BTW, humein to aam khaane se matlab hai.... lol

panchabhut

In order to implement Number Portability, a centralised routing system is required, similar to the clearing house system for banks.
This is generally managed by a third party.

cool_techie_tvm

It is learnt that five players — four US-based companies and a state-owned Indian entity are in the fray to become centralised operators. The players are Telcordia, NeuStar, Syniverse and IBC, and CDoT, sources said. They also added the centralised operator will be selected through a bidding process, and added successful bidders would have to invest up to Rs 100 crore to set up clearing houses to allow MNP to take place.

The process will be as follows — successful bidders will become Mobile Number Portability Clearing House Administrator (MCHAs) and they will set up the Number Portability Database (NPDB), which will have the mobile numbers of all cellular users. All service providers will then be asked to link their networks that of the MCHAs and NPDB.

Source : Mobile number portability in metros likely by mid 09- Telecom-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

shirish

Hi all,
While MCHA's is good, I had heard about only one or two MNP providers at the most in each city, and these would be not from the existing cellular players but some new players. Does anybody know about these? Also what about spectrum? There is so much issue with giving spectrum to existing players.

cool_techie_tvm

These doubts can be cleared only after the bidding process. No insider information is available as of today.