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MNP: Pak to move ahead of India

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CIOL Bureau
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Bhaskar Hazarika






NEW DELHI: Disorganised numbering plan of mobiles might delay the proposed


Mobile Number Portability
(MNP) deployment in India.






With countries across the globe favouring number portability, India is likely to
delay deployment of the process due to unsystematic numbering plan.






Suresh Subramanian, group senior vice president, International Markets Telecom
Services, Telcordia Technologies said that the telecom regulator is working out

the possibilities of number portability in India.






Telcordia has so far deployed MNP in six countries. Among the South East Asian
countries, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is likely to launch this plan within this

year.






“In Saudi Arabia it has already made the soft launch and will be operational by
the end of this month. In Pakistan the deployment is going on and will be

operational by October,” said Subramanian.






Speaking about India he said that it is the right time for India to deploy MNP
as the subscriber base is growing.






“It is the right time for deployment as the subscriber base is growing as it
would be easier for the operators to launch this service, which will bring about

more competition for providing better services and would in turn benefit the

subscribers.”






The deployment of the solution takes eight to 12 months depending on the
numbering plan as it is being done on a national basis.






Subramanian said that in India the numbers are allotted according to the circles
and it would consume more time in deploying the solution on circle basis.






Daniel J. Carroll, chief executive officer, Telcordia Technologies pointed at
the on-going debate between service providers and the regulator on the timing of

the launch of this service.






“This is a general debate which is being seen in every country before the launch
of MNP. The operators should come in to an understanding to make this launch

successful,” Carroll said.






He said that unlike some countries the telecom policy of India does not speak
about offering MNP. He said that the telecom policy of Pakistan has the

regulation to offer this service.






However, there are also several other confronting issues on offering MNP. Is the
service provider going to bear the cost of deploying the service or they would

charge a fee from the customer for changing the service provider and retaining

the number?






TRAI had issued the recommendations for the MNP in March and said that it would
be implemented within a year. It had recommended that this facility would be

available to mobile subscribers by April 1, 2007, which had received opposition

from the majority of service providers.






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