Mobile number portability service will not be available to subscribers of operators whose licenses were canceled by the Supreme Court in February last year.
However this is applicable only to circles where these operators did not win spectrum in recently held auctions, in which MTS won spectrum in 9 circles, Uninor and Videocon in 6 circles each.
Worst hit will be MTS subscribers in Mumbai, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh (East) as auction for CDMA was held only on 11th March and MTS chose not to buy spectrum in these circles, and had just started process of informing subscribers asking them to port to other networks. Every other service provider has already (more or less) completed the process of shifting their subscribers to other networks.
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has issued direction to all existing telecom operators to stop accepting Porting (transfer) request of mobile numbers that were allocated to telecom companies whose permits to operate stands cancelled as per Supreme Court order.
The regulator said, “All the Mobile Number Portability service providers not to process and all the Unified Access Service Providers (telecom operators) should not to entertain request for porting in respect of mobile telephone numbers belonging to the service providers.”
In the direction, TRAI has asked to stop accepting porting request from Tata Teleservices (3 service area), Unitech Wireless , now Uninor (15 service area), Videocon (11 service area), Loop (13 service area), Etisalat (15 service area), S Tel (5 service area) and SSTL (10 service area) where the companies lost their licences.
The TRAI direction comes following Supreme Court order of February 2, 2012 and February 15, 2012 asking telecom operators to close their operations.
Last year, the apex court cancelled 122 2G licences but gave the operators a chance to continue operations only if they acquire fresh spectrum through auction.