I introduce myself as final year student at the National University of Juridical Sciences. My area of academic interest includes Telecommunications Law and regulatory theory in general. As for my credentials I have got few publications at leading International law Journals and have been associated with TDSAT and TRAI on few research projects apart from being a past intern at TDSAT.

From now I will be contributing at this blog and I hope you all will enjoy my posts and other contributions.

My first post seeks to address few issues related to the newly introduced TRAI regulations regarding Mobile Number Portability (hereinafter referred as MNP). Number portability, is a kind of service which allows a telephone subscriber to retain his/her number despite moving from one access provider to another. The reason behind such a move by the Telecom Regulators is to enhance the freedom of subscribers, and to increase competition amongst access providers, with an objective to further encourage improvement in the quality of services. After a detailed discussion and consultation with the stakeholders, TRAI issued the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009 on 23-9-2009 (available at http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/Regulations/89/Regulation23sep09.pdf). There are certain new concepts introduced through these regulations.

Mobile Numbers Portability- Regulation 2 (i) defines MNP as “the facility which allows a subscriber to retain his mobile telephone number even  when he moves from one access provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same access provider.”  Now as per this definition a subscriber will be able to shift from (1) one access provider to another (2) CDMA to GSM or from GSM to CDMA of different access providers (3) one technology to another technology of the same access provider. This service is highly beneficial for the subscribers as it gives ample choice to choose from various access providers. But it is also important to know the process and how this whole system of MNP works.

Porting- The process initiates with the subscribers request for a new connection. The subscriber is suppose to submit a “porting request form” to the recipient operator (access provider who will be providing mobile telecommunication service to the subscriber after porting) with all documents required for a new connection i.e. photo id, address proof, etc. along with a copy of the last bill of the donor operator (to whose network the mobile number belongs at the time the subscriber makes a request for porting). The recipient operator then verifies all the documents and after verification the recipient operator has to inform the subscriber. The subscriber has to send a request to the donor operator to initiate porting process and the donor operator in return will forward an SMS with a unique porting code to the recipient operator. After receiving the porting code the recipient operator has to send all the documents with porting code to the MNP operator within next 24 hours.

The MNP operator’s task is to facilitate porting process between two operators. After receiving all the details from recipient operator including porting code the MNP operator forwards all the documents to the donor operator for clearance. But before forwarding the documents MNP operator has to verify few details i.e. the number has been previously ported in the immediately preceding 90 days (as ninety days is compulsory for a subscriber to stick to one access provider) or if there is any other request for porting the same number is pending. After receiving all the details the donor operator within 24 hours and has to report back to MNP operator after verifying all the details and the porting code.

Thereafter MNP operator has to complete the porting within next 36 hours and is supposed to communicate the date and time of porting to both the operators. The MNP operator at the specified time instructs the donor operator to disconnect the subscriber’s number from its service and report compliance within one hour of such instructions. Thereafter, the MNP operator informs the recipient operator to activate the number on its network within one hour thereof.

Also the subscriber is supposed to pay a porting charge and he is also entitled to cancel his porting request but his porting charge will be non- refundable.

Till this date the MNP regulations remains unopposed as it was drafted after a prolonged and detailed discussion with the concerned stakeholders. Though at a preliminary stage there was little opposition but even that was also addressed by the authorities. Most of the regulations was supposed to be effective from 31^st December, 2009 in respect of Metro and Category ‘A’ licensed service areas; and the 20th March, 2010 in respect of other licensed service areas. Though Number Portability got further delayed due to disagreement between the operators with respect to the prescribed Tariff distribution (details available at Govt puts off mobile number portability by three months http://www.livemint.com/2009/12/31142858/Govt-puts-off-mobile-number-po.html).

But there remains certain issues which both the industry and the policymaker should address.

• There are problems with the institutional framework envisage by the MNP regulations as the MNP operator is left without any recourse if the porting charges are not paid, as the Regulations prohibit suspension of porting facility despite non-payment of porting charges.

• Though the onus of this whole procedure of porting more or less lies with the recipient operator which is beneficial for the subscribers up to a certain extent. But few important subscriber rights are also ignored like the pre-paid subscribers are not entitled to a refund of the balance talk-time and the post-paid subscribers also has to do a lot of time consuming paper work for a refund of any deposits, etc. It would have been much viable if balance talk time could have been transferred with the subscriber’s number to the recipient operator.

• Another major lacuna which this regulation fails to address is the problem associated with repeated incorrect billing and/or overcharging by the access providers. Since the onus lies with the subscriber to prove that all the dues of the donor operator has been paid, then in that case if the  bills are incorrect, the subscriber is left without any remedy while the donor operator could, without justification, prevent the porting. I would like to suggest for a creation of ombudsman or similar kind of mechanism to deal with this problem. As we are all aware that if the subscriber proceeds under Consumer Protection Act how much cumbersome and time consuming the process is. In the meanwhile the subscriber cannot switch over to a new access provider with the same number. Therefore it negates the whole vision of Consumer benefit which these regulations envisage to promote.