New Delhi: The Department of Telecom (DoT) will roll out the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) from November 25. To begin with, the service will be introduced in Haryana.
In a release, the DoT said, "The countrywide launch of MNP services will start from Haryana Licensed Service Area on November 25, 2010. From this date customers in Haryana will have the option of changing their service provider without changing their mobile numbers."
The department had earlier announced that MNP will be made available to the telephone users from November 1, but delayed it to give time to the service providers to "upgrade their network and other resources", the release said.
"The networks are now technically ready for launch of service. To facilitate an orderly and reliable introduction of MNP services, a suitable migration plan has been evolved in consultation with Mobile Service Providers (MSPs)," the release said.
MNP is a service that allows a mobile user to change his operator while retaining the number.
The customers who wish to avail the service will have to send and SMS to the number 1900. After getting a porting code, the customers have to make an application for porting of number.
"A period of four days has been prescribed for completion of porting (transfer) of the mobile number to the network of the new service provider," the DoT release said.
The MNP will be implemented in the rest of the country in a phased manner.
Its implementation has already been delayed thrice due to different reasons. The MNP was to be first implemented by December 31, 2009 in all the Metro cities as well as in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
But the deadline was changed to March 31, 2010 and thereafter to June 30, 2010 because of the lack of necessary infrastructure.
The June 30 deadline for the implementation of MNP was again deferred as the operators were not ready with the infrastructure to provide the service.
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