Policy & Regulation
TT Correspondent | 14 Dec 2018The telecom regulatory authority of India (Trai) has sped up the process for a mobile user to port out to a new telecom service provider to two days, when done within the same circle and four days when porting out from one circle to another.
Titled, "The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has today issued Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018," the new regulations seek to make mobile number portability easier and simpler for users.
Additionally, the Trai among other major changes, has reduced the validity of the unique porting code (UPC) to four days from 15 days previously, except for in J&K, Assam and North East.
Furthermore, the process for withdrawal of porting requests has been made simpler and quicker through SMS. “For the cases of corporate porting, present limit of 50 numbers in single authorization letter has been enhanced to 100 numbers per authorization letter,” the regulator said in a statement on Thursday.
In order to make porting hassle-free for mobile users, Trai has also mandated two sets of financial disincentives for failures on the part of telcos in stick to porting request processing timelines.
For instance, a telco, the regulator said, will have to shell out a peak penalty of “Rs 5,000 per contravention” for flouting rules requiring it to share customer details with the MNP service service provider within 24 hours of a customer submitting a porting request besides texting the customer about the process being initiated. The penalty doubles to Rs 10,000 per violation for “wrongful rejection” of porting requests by a telco.