Attention! Airtel, Jio, Vodafone-Idea, BSNL customers: Mobile number portability rules changed; Here's how you benefit

Mobile Number Portability rules: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has announced a welcome change in Mobile Number Portability (MNP) rules for users. TRAI has now sped up the process for mobile users to shift (or port) to new telecom service provider. Now, this will be done withing two days of porting within the same circle and four days if moving from one circle to another. 

TRAI has reduced the validity of the unique porting code (UPC) to four days from 15 days, except for in J&K, Assam and North East. Moreover, the process for withdrawal of porting requests has also been made simple.

In the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018, TRAI said, "Through this regulation (amendment), a major shift in the mechanism for generating Unique Porting Code (UPC) has been provisioned."

"To make the porting process faster and convenient, for all the cases except corporate porting cases; in the revised process for validation of conditions and generation & delivery of UPC; it has been provisioned to establish a query response mechanism to enable the Mobile Number Portability Service Provider (MNPSP) to query the database of the Donor Operator on real time basis to obtain the response for the queries. Based on the result of queries made by MNPSP and fulfilment of other prescribed conditions, the allocation and delivery of UPC shall be ensured by MNPSP," it said further.

The official release said, "Porting timeline of 2 working days has been provisioned for the requests of Intra-Licensed Service Area (Intra-LSA) numbers except the requests made under corporate category and the timelines of 4 working days has been provisioned for all the porting requests of Inter-Licensed Service Area (Inter-LSA)
numbers and corporate category."

Other major changes include: Validity of UPC for 4 days only, in place of 15 days earlier, except for Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East

- The process for withdrawal of porting requests has been made simpler and quicker through SMS.

- Corporate porting: Present limit of 50 numbers in single authorization letter has been enhanced to 100 numbers per
authorization letter. 

- Provisions for the Financial Disincentives have been broadened upon contravention of the provisions of MNP Regulations. 

- Post implementation of this regulation (amendment), TRAI said appropriate Quality of Service (QoS) parameters will be devised by the Authority to monitor the role of MNPSPs and Access Providers in the new scenario.