MNP Processing Time to Get Reduced to 2 Days as New TRAI Norms Come Into Effect on December 16

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced a new date for the implementation of the revised mobile number portability (MNP) rules. These rules were announced in December last year, alongside other revisions in the Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018 (9 of 2018). While the revisions to ease portability from one operator to another have been finalised, it has taken TRAI over a year to get it implemented. The authority says that the testing process needs to be thoroughly conducted and any issues need to be ironed out, before the new MNP rules come into place.

TRAI has announced that the new MNP rules will come into place on December 16. These new rules were finalised on December 13 last year, and these look to enable users to port to a new operator in just two days. For inter-circle MNP wherein you are porting your SIM from one circle to another, the process will take five days. The new rules were expected to be implemented on November 11, however an indefinite delay was then imposed. A new date of December 16 has now been enforced, after which speedy MNP procedures will come into effect.

As mentioned, the delay in implementation of these new MNP rules has been blamed on prolonged testing. In an official statement, TRAI says, “As per the discussions taken place during the meetings with Mobile Number Portability Service Providers (MNPSPs) and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) on 21st October 2019 and 31st October 2019, it is imperative that robust testing of the systems of TSPs and MNPSPs should be completed successfully before migration to the new process so that the subscribers are not inconvenienced due to system related issues.”

Currently, telecom operators offer lucrative and ever-changing prepaid plans to their subscribers, often leading to many users wanting to switch. However, the current porting process is quite tedious and is an eight-day affair that can be quite discouraging. Easing the MNP process is in the best interest of the subscribers and the telecom operators.