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| Edited By: Nivedita Mookerji |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 17, 2018, 02:22 AM IST
The government has backed out of its promise to introduce mobile number portability across metros and other big cities on New Year’s Day.
On December 12, DNA had said that number portability would be delayed as the ministry of home affairs has pointed at certain security-related issues and has sought a review of the earlier approval granted by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to Telecordia. FIPB deferred a decision on the proposal recently.
Number portability, or MNP, allows one to retain the mobile number even after switching to another telecom service provider in the same service area, irrespective of the technology (GSM or CDMA) used.
A statement issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Thursday said mobile number portability would be implemented by April, 2010.
As opposed to the earlier plan of rolling out MNP in metros and some big cities by January 2010 and other parts of the country by April 2010, the government’s revised schedule is for the entire country.
So, mobile number portability would be introduced across all of India by April now, if the new DoT calendar is followed.
Some telecom operators are still not technically ready to implement mobile number portability, DoT has said while extending the MNP timeline.
“After the service providers are ready with their own inter-operator test results, a complete acceptance test is to be carried out by DoT across the networks of all the concerned service providers in all the service areas before MNP service is implemented,” DoT has said.
Although the government is citing `readiness’ issues for deferring MNP, there could be other hurdles on the way as well.
For instance, the government has decided to review its decision of clearing Telecordia Technologies Inc’s proposal for investing in an Indian venture to introduce and manage mobile number portability in the country, for its Pakistan links. Telecordia is one of the two companies chosen for implementing and managing number portability in the country.
In February, FIPB had okayed the proposal, ahead of Telecordia being selected for managing number portability solutions in south and east of India. Another company, Syniverse Technologies would handle number portability for the north and the west.
