INTRODUCTION:
The usage of mobile phones is on the increase today in our country. Several service providers are rendering mobile phone service across the country. Each service provider is allotted distinct numbers for allotment to the subscribers. Migration from one service provider to another service provider with the existing mobile number is not possible at present. Promotion of competition and efficiency requires the facilitation of easy movement of subscribers from one service provider to another or across mobile technologies. Mobile Number Portability allows the subscribers to retain their existing telephone number when they move from access provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same access provider, in a licensed area. The facility of retention of existing mobile telephone number despite moving to a new telecom service provider helps the subscriber maintain contact with the friends/clientele.
MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY:
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ('TRAI' for short) made 'Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009' to regulate the mobile number portability and notified the same on 23rd September 2009.
Regulation 2(i) defines the terms 'Mobile Number Portability'('MNP' for short) as the facility which allows a subscriber to retain his mobile telephone number when he moves from one Access Provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology, or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same Access provider.
FRAMEWORK:
The regulations seek to provide a framework governing all relevant aspects of MNP by-
laying down clear eligibility conditions for porting of mobile telephone numbers;
defining rights and obligations of various stake holders, i.e., the Donor Operator, the Recipient Operator, the MNP service provider;
laying down the procedure to be followed by each player in the chain in processing number porting request;
specifying clear time limits for completion of various steps by each player in the chain i.e., the Donor Operator, Recipient Operator and the MNP service provider; and
envisaging least disruption of service to the consumer.
SALIENT FEATURES:
The salient features of the MNP under these regulations are as follows:
MNP facility shall be available only within a given licensed area;
A subscriber holding a mobile number is eligible to make a porting request only after 90 days of the date of activation of his mobile connection. If a number is already ported once, the number can again be ported only after 90 days from the date of previous porting;
The subscriber who wishes to port his mobile number should approach the Recipient operator. The subscriber may be required to pay porting charges, if any, to the Recipient Operator;
The subscriber making the porting request is required to have cleared all the bills issued prior to the date of porting request. He shall give an undertaking that he has already paid all billed dues to the Donor Operator as on the date of the request for porting and that he shall pay dues to the Donor Operator pertaining to the mobile number till its eventual porting and that he understandings and agrees that in event of non payment of any such dues to the Donor Operator, the ported mobile number shall be liable to be disconnected by the Recipient Operator;
A subscriber may withdraw his porting request within 24 hours of its submission to the Recipient Operator. However the porting charges shall not be refundable;
The regulation envisage a maximum time period of four days for the completion of porting process;
Access Providers are required to implement All Call Query methods;
The Originating operator shall be responsible to route the call to correct terminating network.
ELIGIBILITY FOR MAKING A REQUEST:
Every subscriber shall be eligible to make a request for porting(the process of moving, by a subscriber, of his mobile number or numbers from one Access Provider to another Access Provider or from one mobile technology to another of the same or any other Access Provider) his mobile number if he satisfies the following:
A period of ninety days has expired from the date of activation of his mobile connection not ported earlier or from the date of activation of his mobile number after its last porting;
There is no outstanding due to the Donor Operator by way of pending bill or bills issued as per the normal billing cycle but before the date of application for porting;
There is no pending request for change of ownership of the mobile number;
The mobile number sought to be ported is not sub-judice;
Porting of the concerned mobile number has not been prohibited by the Court of Law;
The request form shall be accompanied by all documents applicable to a new subscriber; a copy of the last bill, in the case of a postpaid subscriber.
CONTENTS OF REQUEST:
The porting request form as specified by the Recipient operator shall, inter alia, incorporate the following:
The eligibility criteria;
The grounds for rejection;
In the case of a post paid subscriber, an undertaking by the subscriber that he has already paid all dues as per the last bill to the Donor Operator and that he shall be bound to pay all dues to the Donor Operator pertaining to the mobile number sought to be ported till its eventual porting and that he understands and agrees that in the event of non payment of any such dues to the Donor Operator, the ported mobile number shall, without prejudice to any other remedies available to the Donor Operator under law for recovery of such dues, be liable to be disconnected by the Recipient Operator;
In the case of a pre-paid subscriber, an undertaking by the subscriber to the effect that he understands and agrees that, upon porting of the mobile number, the balance amount of talk time, if any, at the time of porting shall lapse;
Such details of the subscriber as mandated by the licensor or by the Authority from time to time;
WITHDRAWAL OF PORTING REQUEST:
A subscriber may, within twenty four hours of making a request for porting, withdraw such request by informing the Recipient operator in writing. He shall not be entitled to any refund of the porting charge paid by him to the Recipient operator. Where the Recipient Operator has not forwarded the porting request to the Mobile Number Portability Service Provider till receipt of the information regarding withdrawal of the request, it shall not take any further action on such porting request.
In case the Recipient Operator has already forwarded the porting request to the Mobile Number Portability Service provider, before receipt of the information regarding withdrawal of the request, it shall forthwith inform the Mobile Number Portability Service Provider about the withdrawal of the porting request and the Mobile Number Portability Service provider shall forthwith inform the Donor Operator about the withdrawal of the porting request. In this case the Recipient Operator shall be liable to pay the applicable per port transaction charge to the Mobile Number Portability Service provider.
GROUNDS FOR REJECTION OF REQUEST:
The request may be rejected on any of the following grounds:
There are outstanding payments due from the subscriber by way of pending bill or bills, as the case may be, issued as per the normal billing cycle but before the date of application for porting;
The porting request has been made before the expiry of a period of ninety days from the date of activation of a new connection;
A request for change of ownership of the mobile number is under process;
The mobile number sought to be ported is sub-judice;
Porting of the mobile number has been prohibited by a Court of Law;
Subscriber has applied for inter-service area porting;
The unique porting code mentioned in the porting request does not match with the unique porting code allocated by the Donor Operator for the mobile number sought to be ported;
There are subsisting contractual obligations in respect of which an exit clause has been provided in the subscriber agreement but the subscriber has not complied with such exit clause. Where the Donor Operator rejects a porting request on the ground of subsisting contractual obligations, he shall indicate the full details of such contractual obligations.
PROCESSING OF NUMBER PORTING REQUEST:
Every Access Provider shall facilitate in its entire network, Mobile Number Portability to all subscribers, both pre paid and post paid and shall, upon request, provide the same on a non discriminatory basis. Every Access Provider shall, within sixty days from the date of these regulations coming into force, set up, in its mobile network, a mechanism for the purpose of-
Receiving Short Message Service (SMS) messages from its subscribers requesting for a unique porting code (an alpha numeric code allocated, upon request, by an Access provider to its subscriber for the purpose of facilities of porting of his mobile number);
Allocating a unique porting code for each such request and communicating it to the subscriber forthwith through Short Message Service (SMS) message through an automated process; and
Retaining such unique porting number on its records for the purpose of verification of the porting request of such subscriber to be received eventually by it from the Mobile Number Portability Service provider.
Action by Recipient Operator:
Recipient operator is an Access Provider who will be providing mobile telecommunication service to the subscriber after porting and includes his authorized agent. The role of Recipient Operator in the process is as follows:
§ Every subscriber desirous of porting his mobile number shall make a request in writing to the concerned Recipient Operator in such format as may be specified by such Recipient Operator;
§ On receipt of request the Recipient Operator shall verify if the customer acquisition form is accompanied by all documents specified;
§ He shall record in the form that he has seen the subscriber and verified his documents with their respective originals and found them to be in order;
§ He shall thereupon ask the subscriber to send a message through SMS to a specified short code of the Donor Operator from the subscriber's mobile number which is sought to be ported;
§ On receipt of message from the subscriber, the Donor Operator shall forthwith send back a reply message through an automated system generated SMS containing a unique porting code;
§ The subscriber shall incorporate the unique porting code in the porting request form;
§ The Recipient Operator shall within a period of twenty four hours forward the mobile number, the corresponding unique porting code and the date on which porting request is made by the subscriber, to the concerned Mobile Number Portability Service Provider; Sundays and public holidays shall be excluded in calculating twenty four hours;
§ The Recipient Operator shall pay Per Port Transaction charge in respect of each porting request forwarded by it to the Mobile Number Portability Service Provider;
Action by Mobile Number Portability Service Provider:
Mobile Number Portability Service Provider is an entity who has been granted a licence under Section 4 of the Indian Telegraph Act for providing Mobile Number Portability Service. Two MNP operators for two zones in the country were identified and licence was issued to them. The role of MNP service provider is as follows:
On receipt of request the service provider shall verify from its Number Portability Database (the database maintained by each MNP Service Provider in electronic form, holding the details of all ported mobile numbers in its zone, along with the complete history of all transactions relating to the porting of such numbers) whether the mobile number has been ported earlier and, if so, whether a period of ninety days has elapsed from the date of its last porting;
If ninety days has not elapsed he shall not take any action on the request and inform the Recipient Operator accordingly and the Recipient operator shall communicate the same to the concerned subscriber;
He shall verify whether any porting request in respect of the same mobile number is already pending and, if so, it shall reject the current request for porting and communicate such rejection to the Recipient Operator who forwarded such request, who shall, thereupon communicate the same to the concerned subscriber;
If no pending request is there he shall forthwith forward the details of such request to the Donor Operator for seeking his clearance for such porting;
Action by Donor Operator:
Donor Operator is a Cellular Mobile Telecom Service Provider or Unified Access Service Provider, to whose network the mobile number belongs at the time the subscriber makes a request for porting. The role of Donor Operator on receipt of the details of porting request from MNP service provider, he shall within twenty four hours, verify such details and communicate to the MNP service provider-
§ Where it finds that porting request is covered under any of the grounds for rejection, the details of specific ground on which it has any objection to the porting of the number from its network; or
§ Where it finds that porting request is not covered under any of the grounds for rejection its clearance for the porting of the mobile number.
In calculating twenty four hours intervening Sundays and public holidays declared under the Negotiable Instrument Act, 1881 shall be excluded.
Porting of Mobile Number:
On receipt of communication from the Donor Operator, the MNP service provider shall-
communicate the grounds for rejection for porting, if any, to the Recipient operator ;
where the Donor Operator has indicated his clearance to the porting request or has failed to communicate either its clearance or its objection for porting of the mobile number within the time specified, forthwith fix the date and time of porting of such mobile number and communicate it, along with details of anticipated number, service period, simultaneously to the Donor Operator and the Recipient Operator;
He shall fix the date and time of porting in such manner that the porting shall be within six hours from the time of receipt of the clearance from the Donor Operator or the expiry of the time limit specified; In respect of Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East the date and time for porting shall be within ten days from the date of clearance from the Donor Operator or the expiry of the time limit specified;
Where the MNP service provider has communicated the grounds for rejection as indicated by the Donor Operator to the Recipient Operator, the Recipient operator shall communicate the same, in writing or through SMS to the concerned subscriber;
Where the MNP service provider has communicated the date and time of porting of such mobile number and the anticipated No Service Period (the period of time between the disconnection of the mobile telephone service to the porting subscriber by the Donor Operator and the activation of mobile telephone service, on porting by the Recipient Operator) to the Donor Operator and to the Recipient Operator, the Recipient Operator shall communicate the same to the subscriber telephonically or through SMS or through an automated voice message;
At the date and time of porting fixed by the MNP Service Provider, he shall communicate to the Donor Operator its instructions for disconnection of the mobile number and the Donor Operator shall immediately and in any case within one hour of receipt of such instruction comply with such instructions and report compliance of such instructions to the MNP Service Provider;
On receipt of the compliance or the expiry of one hour whichever is earlier the MNP Service Provider shall communicate to the Recipient Operator its instructions for activation of the mobile number;
On receipt of the instructions the Recipient Operator shall, immediately and in any case within one hour of receipt of such instructions comply with such instructions and report compliance of such instructions to the MNP Service Provider;
On receipt of compliance, the MNP Service Provider shall allocate the corresponding Location Routing Number (the code assigned to every Access Provider for the purpose of implementing Mobile Number Portability) to the ported number in the Number Portability database and broadcast the updated Location Routing Number along with the ported mobile number to all Access Providers and International Long Distance Operators who shall update their respective Local Number Portability Database.
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF SERVICE PROVIDERS:
Donor Operator:
He shall continue to provide all subscribed telecommunication services to the subscriber who has sought porting of his mobile number till the disconnection of the mobile number;
After disconnection he shall refund to the subscriber, with such time frame and in such manner as specified in the Standards of Quality of Service of Basic Telephone Service (Wire line) and Cellular Mobile Telephone Service Regulations, 2009 all amounts due to such subscriber on account of refundable payments or deposits made by such subscriber to the Donor Operator;
He shall maintain records of all mobile numbers ported out by it and all mobile numbers for which porting requests have been rejected by it for a minimum period of twelve months from the date of porting or the date of rejection of request;
In case of non payment of any outstanding bill after the porting request he shall give a notice of not less than seven days to the subscriber notifying him that in case of non payment within the said notice period, the he shall request the Recipient Operator to disconnect the ported number;
If the subscriber fails to make payments as specified in the notice, he shall communicate the details of such outstanding bills to the Recipient Operator through MNP Service Provider with an advice to take action for disconnecting the ported number.
Recipient Operator:
He shall pay to the MNP Service provider, the Per Port Transaction charge (the charge payable by the Recipient Operator the MNP Service provider for processing the porting request in respect of a mobile number) at the rate specified by TRAI within 15 days of receipt of the bill or within such other time limit as may be mutually agreed upon;
He shall maintain records in respect of all mobile numbers for which porting requests have been rejected, for a minimum period of twelve months from the date of rejection of such requests;
On receipt of request from the Donor Operator to disconnect the porting number, he shall issue a notice to the concerned subscriber, the period of which shall be not less than seven days and not more than fifteen days about the request received from the Donor Operator and request him to produce evidence of having settled the dues with the Donor Operator;
If the subscriber produces evidence he shall not take any further action and shall inform the Donor Operator through MNP Service provider;
If the subscriber fails to produce evidence he shall disconnect the mobile number and inform the MNP Service provider and request for reversal of such number to the Number Range Holder after expiry of ninety days;
If there is disconnection of the mobile number for any other reason he shall, after ninety days of such disconnection, inform the MNP Service provider about such disconnection with a request for reversal of such number to the Number Range Holder (an Access Provider who was originally allotted, by the licensor, that number range to which the ported number belongs).
MNP Service Provider:
He shall make all efforts to facilitate expeditious porting of mobile numbers through effective coordination with the Donor Operator and the Recipient Operator;
He shall use the Number Portability Database only for the purpose of porting and dipping (use of query response system of the MNP Service provider for obtaining Location Routing Number for routing a message to the called number) and not for any other purpose;
He shall generate specific sets of statistics regarding the number of porting requests received, the number of porting carried out successfully and the number of failed porting requests with reasons for such failures;
On receipt of request from the Recipient Operator about disconnection of a ported mobile number, he shall forthwith-
* Remove the number from its Number Portability Database;
* Update the Local Number Portability Databases of all Access Providers and International Long Distance Operators; and
* Restore the mobile number to the Number Range Holder.
He shall raise bills along with the relevant details in respect of Per Port Transaction charges to the concerned Recipient Operators on a monthly basis and shall deliver such bills before the tenth day of the following month or at such periodic intervals and within such time limits as may be mutually agreed upon;
If Recipient Operator fails to pay the bill he shall issue a notice, the period of which shall not be less than fifteen days to make payment within such period;
He shall in no case discontinue the provision of Mobile Number Portability Service to such defaulting Recipient Operator.
Access Providers, National Long Distance Operators and International Long Distance Operators:
All existing interconnect agreements or arrangements between Access Providers, National Long Distance Operators and International Long Distance Operators shall, upon the coming into force of these regulations, stand amended so as to conform to the provisions of the regulations as regards routing of calls to and from ported mobile numbers;
They shall within thirty days of coming into force of these regulations or before commencement of Access Service or carriage service shall establish fail proof connectivity from its Mobile Number Portability gateway to the main Disaster recovery sites of the Mobile Number Portability Service providers at its own cost;
An Access Provider having licences in more than one licensed service area may establish such fail proof connectivity to the main and Disaster recovery sites of the Mobile Number Portability Service providers common for all its licensed service areas;
An Access Provider, an International Long Distance Operator providing carriage service to any Access Provider, may establish such fail proof connectivity to the main and Disaster recovery sites of the MNP service providers common for all its licensed services and share its Local Number Portability Database across its various licensed activities for the purpose of implementing Mobile Number Portability Service;
No Access Provider or International Long Distance Operator providing carriage service to any Access Provider shall share its Local Number Portability Database with another Access Provider or International Long Distance Operator;
A service provider who is sharing its Local Number Portability Database across its licensed activities shall ensure that such sharing of Local Number Portability Database enables it to directly route messages to ported mobile numbers;
Every Access Provider on whose network a message originates shall be responsible for the correct routing of such message;
The International Long Distance Operator carrying such messages shall be responsible for correct routing of messages;
Every Access Provider and International Long Distance Operator shall put in place suitable mechanism for safeguarding the data provided by porting subscribers from unauthorized interception or unauthorized access and shall ensure that such data is used solely for the purpose of porting of mobile numbers and shall not use such data for any other purpose;
These regulations shall not prevent such Access Providers from providing such data or access to such data for monitoring purposes to the designated security agencies.
CHARGES FOR PORTING:
Per Porting Transaction charge to be payable by the subscriber to the Recipient Operator is Rs.19/-. In this regard, the Authority while determining the Per Port Transaction charge through the Telecommunications Per Port Transaction Charge and Dipping Charge Regulations, 2009 ( 9 of 2009), has decided that no compensation shall be payable to the service providers for up gradation of their networks to make it MNP compliant and also to the Donor Operator for administrative costs incurred in processing the porting request as MNP do not require the Donor Operator to carryout any significant work. Similarly, when a subscriber makes a request to port his mobile number, in so far as Recipient Operator is concerned, it is similar to acquiring a new subscriber and as such the Recipient Operator does not incur any additional cost in the MNP process except for the Per Port Transaction charge which is payable to the MNPSP for processing the porting request. Moreover, MNP gives the Recipient Operator an opportunity to acquire more subscribers. Therefore, the Authority does not find any justification for the Recipient Operator to charge any additional amount from the subscriber over and above what it has to pay to the MNPSP in the form of Per Port Transaction charge. Accordingly, the Per Port Transaction charge shall be the ceiling for the Porting charge. It is however open to the Recipient Operator to collect, at his discretion, a lesser amount from the subscriber making a porting request.
EFFECT:
Initially the TRAI fixed the date for implementation of mobile number portability as 31st December 2009 for metro cities and 31st March, 2010 for other areas. Since the service providers requested the Authority to extend the same for better compliance the Authority fixed the date as 31st March, 2010 for metro cities and 30th June 2010 for other areas. Despite repeated extension of deadlines over the past one year, as of June only 14 per cent of the mobile networks across the country were ready for the introduction of MNP and 36 per cent were in progress. The Department of Telecom said that permission to any operator for launching services, post September 1, will be given only if their network is ready for introducing MNP. The latest deadline for introducing the facility has been extended to October 31.
CONCLUSION:
The Telecom industry is definitely under revolution. Mobile Number Portability will add advantage to the consumers. By this the competition in the Telecom industry will increase.
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