TRAI weighs number portability

NEW DELHI: The telecoms regulator is seeking industry opinion on setting up guidelines for a service that allows users to keep phone numbers when they change operators, a top official said.

Number portability makes it easier for unhappy users to retain their original mobile number, but it results in heavy costs for service providers and leaves them open to the risk of losing customers to rivals or new entrants.

"We will issue a consultation paper within a month," Rajendra Singh, head of the mobile networks division in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), told a news conference.

"The deciding factor is the cost to the operator."

Number portability is the latest in a string of services that could be offered to Indian customers who have been regularly wooed with new facilities such as high-speed Internet surfing and picture messaging since India launched mobile services in 1995.

Singh said TRAI had studied the implementation of number portability in many overseas markets and concluded that additional costs to make networks compatible were large.

About 20 countries have number portability facilities and most markets have already seen brutal competition intensifying further after the introduction of such facilities.

If introduced, number portability will only increase competition in the already cutthroat Indian market where the number of users is projected to grow to at least 100 million by 2005 from about 30 million today.

More than a dozen players including Bharti Tele-Ventures and Reliance Infocomm Ltd compete for a slice of the growing market.

© Reuters