MNP: Idea gets more; Reliance, BSNL loss

Mumbai, Jan 30: The early figures after the launch of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) show that Abhishek Bahchan's campaigns to woo the subscribers have positively worked for Idea Cellular. It became the biggest gainer with a net gain of 12,300 subscribers in just eight days.

MNP was launched across the country on Jan 20 which allows users to change their service providers while retaining their numbers. The figures made available by telecom companies to the Department of Telecommunications revealed the gain and loss for different service providers in India.

Here is the major shifts after MNP launch:

* Idea bagged a net gain of 12,300 subscribers. (Net gain is the difference between the number of subscribers who left and those who joined)
* Vodafone Essar got a net addition of 11,252 subscribers
* Aircel settled at third position with 3,389 net additions
* Airtel manged to get only 94 customers
* Reliance Communications lost 9,837 subscribers and 192 decided to join it
* BSNL also lost many of its subscribers.

How to switch between operators:
* The subscriber, who likes to avail this service, need to send a SMS from his mobile to 1900.
* Once the customer sends SMS, he will be receiving a unique porting code from the current service provider.
* Then he need to fill the application in a particular format and mention the new service provider, the customer would like to subscribe for.
* The new service provider will collect the information about the user from the current operator. A time period of seven days will be taken for the complete transfer of mobile number to the network of the new mobile operator.
* As a transformation charge for the new operator the subscriber has to pay the amount of Rs 19.

OneIndia News