No decision taken yet on Mobile Number Portability - Minister

The Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad, informed the Lok Sabha today, in a written reply to a question by Shri P.S. Gadhavi, Shri Sanjay Dhotre and Dr. Rajesh Mishra that during the consultation process, prior to issue of the recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Mobile Number Portability (MNP), some of the stakeholders have stated that:

(i) In most of the countries the MNP was introduced at a time when the tele-density was around 25 to 30 per cent.

(ii) Most of the mobile operators are at present involved in rolling out of their network in the semi-urban/rural areas and hence it is not the right time to introduce MNP as they will have to incur heavy expenditure on upgradation of their network/switches for MNP.

(iii) There is enough competition in all the licence areas and hence the introduction of MNP will not yield major benefit to the customer.

(iv) As on date, no decision has been taken in the matter.

Source : Press Information Bureau

Keywords