National MNP Approved: Retain Your Mobile Number While Shifting Cities

MNP now country-wide. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), as the name suggests, oversees all communications-related affairs of our country in conjunction with the Telecom Commission. TRAI also decides/recommends the policies of the Indian mobile network.

In January 2011, India implemented the first Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service across the board. Since then, over 14 crore subscribers have taken use of the service till 2014, going by the latest data. There was however, a quirk. The Indian telecom network is designed like this – India is divided into 22 telecom service geographical areas called ‘circles’. Some circles cover one state while some circles span over multiple states. Until now, MNP was limited into a specific circle. It meant that the subscriber cannot move across circles and still use MNP service. And this brings us to the news.

In a recent update, TRAI has amended the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulation (2009). Onwards from May 3rd 2015, MNP will become a country-wide feature. This means that subscribers can now change their service providers while keeping the same number, even if they relocate to another state (and therefore another circle) in the country.
This is a very welcome change, especially considering the increasing mobility of the subscribers across the states. MNP has also resulted in keeping the service providers in line because subscribers are no longer at the mercy of their chosen service provider; they can simply switch if they want to.

It is to be noted the country-wide MNP scheme will be very difficult to implement, as per technical experts.