TRAI postpones deadline to roll out new MNP rules, cites technical issue

New Delhi, Nov 06: Telecom regulator TRAI has confirmed that the revised Mobile Number Portability (MNP) rules, which were expected to come into effect from November 11, have been delayed due to technical issues.

TRAI said fresh date will be notified in due course and that the porting of mobile numbers will, for now, continue in accordance with the existing process without being affected during November 4-10.

The regulator said it is imperative that robust testing should be completed successfully before migration to the new process so that the subscribers are not inconvenienced due to any system-related issues.

"It was observed that earlier-indicated timelines cannot be adhered to due to some technical issues at the end of telecom operators and MNP service providers," TRAI said.

Accordingly, it said the date of implementation of the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Seventh Amendment) Regulations, 2018, "needs to be postponed".

"The exact date will be notified in due course of time. The porting of mobile numbers will, therefore, continue in accordance with the existing MNP process and will not be affected from November 4 to November 10, 2019," TRAI said in a statement.

As per the new TRAI-recommended TRAI regulations, MNP requests within the same Localized Service Areas (LSA) of telcos would get completed in three working days.

For requests from one LSA to another, the process would take just 5 working days. Earlier, both these processes took at least 7 working days, leaving a cross-section of port-out customers unhappy and frustrated with having to stick to the same operator.