PAN India MNP from July, says minister

Subscribers will be able to change their service provider in any part of the country while retaining the number from July 2015 onwards. The measure will allow the user to keep the number in any part of the country even when they change their operator or state. Earlier the mobile number portability is only allowed within the particular telecom circle. Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted on Tuesday, confirming the landmark change in the telecom sector.



 

Following the recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authoeity of India (TRAI), it was in November last year, the department of telecom had issued amendments to the MNP license agreement stating that it has to be implemented across the country within a period of six months from the date of amendment of the licenses. However the full MNP roll out deadline on May 3 could not meet and the government extended two more months time.

Telecom operators across India have even implemented simplified dialing pattern that allow both STD and local numbers be dialed without any prefix.

The DoT said that the ‘full MNP’ is implementing after many rounds of talks. “Detailed discussions were held with stakeholders to address various technical complexities emerged while implementing the ‘full MNP’ in the networks,” the DoT said. “Various operators have already put in place hardware and software in their system required for implementation of full MNP,” the DoT added.