The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced to bring down the cost of mobile number portability (MNP) charges from Rs 19 to Rs 4.The regulator came to this decision after considering the comments received from stakeholders during the consultation process and other relevant facts.
TRAI has officially released “The Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Per Port Transaction Charge and Dipping Charge (Amendment) Regulations, 2018” and it will come into force from the date of its notification in the Official Gazette.
“After taking into consideration the comments received from stakeholders during consultation process and other relevant facts, the authority has decided that the per port transaction charge may be reduced as the costs of operations of Mobile Number Portability Service Providers (MNPSPs) have substantially gone down and the volume of MNP traffic has increased,” TRAI said.
To recall, TRAI rolled out ‘Telecommunication Mobile Number portability Per Port Transaction Charge and Dipping Charge Regulations, 2009’ dated on November 20, 2009, through which the regulator fixed Rs 19 as the celling of per port transaction charge. For the unintended, the Mobile Number Portability is the facility that allows a subscriber of an operator service to retain his/her mobile number when he/she moves from one operator to another.
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The MNP was limited only within a telecom circle. However, in July 2015, the scope of MNP was expanded across all services area on pan-India bases. The regulator is of the view that scope of MNP and number of requests have increased exponentially with a number of Porting requests jumping from 6.4 million during 2010-11 to 36.8 million in 2014-15, which further rose to 63.6 million during 2016-17.