DoT working on Mobile Number Portability to meet June timeline

Working towards meeting timeline of June 2009, Department of telecom will shortly issue clarifications to the bidders on the Mobile Number Portability norms, after which it will start
accepting applications from the prospective firms to act as agencies for porting numbers.

The Government has already held the pre-bid conference last month and is about to issue clarifications queries of the operators on the same. The bids are scheduled to be opened on February 5, said an official. The prospective bidders will act as clearing houses and database for the MNP system.

The implementation roadmap for MNP is for Metros and category A circles by middle of 2009 and in the entire country by the end of 2009.

DoT is also likely to take a decision shortly if it is in the ambit of existing norms to allow users to shift between GSM and CDMA services of the same operator before the full-fledged Mobile Number Portability starts between two operators.

The intra-operator MNP is possible with two operators in the Indian context -- Reliance Communications and Tatas, who have both GSM and CDMA operations. While RCom has announced its pan-India GSM services recently, Tatas do have spectrum for GSM service but are yet to start the service.

Tatas have already sided with the GSM operators on this issue, who have opposed the intra-operator portability.