Mobile Number Portability – A Quick Read!

Back in the day’s people mostly used wire lines to communicate. It was noticed that customers never liked if they had to change there telephone numbers if they move from one place to other.

The wireless industry was just picking up then.Number Portability came making it possible for subscribers to move from one place to other, one service provider to other and one service to other without changing their telephone/mobile numbers. Number portability (NP) was designed for wire-line industry keeping the wire-less industry in view.

There was need for additional technology to be in place for NP to operate. A number portability data base was created and all the subscriber numbers who have ported were stored in it.

Since multiple operators are involved it was decided to bring in place a neutral vendor to manage and maintain this data base. In case of India it is Telecordia. The whole country was divided into zone and each zone had a NP data base. As in case of India its Zone2.

All the service providers in the zone are required to have a connection to NP database so as to find out the call routing information for a subscriber. This service is some thing similar to call-forwarding except that subscribers will not have to pay for the forwarding service. Subscriber in one zone can be easily ported from one service provider to other if NP database is updated.

In our case, that is India, Telecordia is the neutral vendor. Zone 2 consists of following circles.

• Kolkata
• Tamil Nadu including Chennai
• Andhra Pradesh
• Karnataka
• Kerala
• Madhya Pradesh
• West Bengal
• Assam
• Bihar
• North East
• Orissa

Usually porting the number from one service provider to other should not take much time but a maximum of 2 days is assumed to be ok. Charges for NP should be bare minimum. In few countries NP is free!

What this means to subscribers: – Freedom from changing their contact numbers if relocated, Freedom from service providers clutches, Easy access to various plans in other service providers.

What this means to service providers: – More competition. Network overhead for call routing and numerous initial complaints!

what is mobile number portability (MNP)

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is a facility which allows you to move to another operator from your existing operator while retaining your existing operator’s mobile number.MNP is applicable for porting between mobile operators only, in the same telecom Circle. Also, by regulation, customer can port-into another operator only if he/she has been with that operator for at least 90 days.

Steps to move your mobile number to airtel

1. To begin with, you need to generate UPC (Unique Porting Code) by sending SMS to 1900. UPC is an alphanumeric code allocated, upon request, by a mobile operator to its subscriber for the purpose of facilitation of porting of his/her mobile number to another operator.
• SMS to be sent : PORT to 1900. Operator SMS charges will be applicable.
• Eg. SMS PORT 98XXXXXXXX to 1900

2. After sending SMS to 1900, you will receive UPC (Unique Porting Code) as a SMS from 1901 giving 8 digit alpha-numeric Unique Porting Code (UPC) and UPC expiry date in MM/DD/YYYY format

3. Visit your nearest airtel outlet / showroom

4. Fill airtel Mobile Number Porting (MNP) form providing details like
• Current Mobile Number
• Current Operator name
• UPC code

5. Submit Address & Id proof documents, self-attested photo and last bill copy of postpaid connection (if applicable) along-with filled MNP form and Customer Agreement Form.

6. Buy the airtel MNP SIM card from airtel outlet / showroom. SIM charges, talktime value and porting charge are non-refundable in the event of cancellation / rejection of port-in request.

7. airtel will send an SMS on your old/existing operator’s SIM (existing connection) intimating about the porting date and time, i.e. the date and approximate time till when you can continue to use your existing operator’s SIM card.

8. There will be a 2-hour ‘no service period’ which will begin after the porting time as given above. The ‘no service period’ will be between 12 midnight to 5 am during which your mobile service will not be active on any SIM. All efforts will be made to ensure that this ‘no service period’ causes minimum inconvenience to you.

9. After the ‘no service period’, you can replace your existing operator’s SIM card with the new airtel SIM card in your handset.

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