ebruary onwards, of the 22 telecom circles in India, the number of porting requests submitted from Gujarat has been the highest.
Ever since mobile number portability (MNP) was introduced in the country from January 20 this year, cellphone users in Gujarat have proved most keen to switch to different service providers. February onwards, of the 22 telecom circles in India, the number of porting requests submitted from Gujarat has been the highest.
By the end of April 2011, the total number of MNP requests submitted by mobile subscribers in India had touched 85.41 lakh. Of this, almost 10% (i.e., 8.33 lakh requests) were from Gujarat.
As per the data sent by service providers to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), by the end of April 2011, about 85.41 lakh subscribers had submitted requests for change of service provider without a change of their mobile number.
A report released by TRAI on Monday reveals that of the request received till the end of April, the maximum number were from Gujarat (8.33 lakh) followed by Rajasthan (7.11 lakh) and Karnataka (6.63 lakh).
The Tamil Nadu service area witnessed submission of 6.41 lakh requests while in Maharashtra it was 5.92 lakh. There were around 5.32 lakh requests in Haryana where MNP was implemented from November 25, 2010. Haryana was the first state where the MNP was introduced; yet it lags behind Gujarat in number of porting requests.
A month-wise break-up of the number of MNP requests from Gujarat throws up an interesting fact. The number of requests from Gujarat has been coming down every month. Between January 20 and February 28, 3.64 lakh MNP requests were sent from Gujarat. In March the number came down to 2.52 lakh and, in April, it fell further to 2.16 lakh requests.
Till late 2009, there were only six mobile operators in Gujarat but now there is a much greater choice, which encourages people to switch to operators that provide comparatively better services.
"Earlier customers did not have many options but in the last one-and-half years, six new operators launched their services," said an official of one of the leading telecom companies.
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