Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued draft regulations for introduction of mobile number portability (MNP) in the country.

The draft regulations describe the rights, obligations and duties of both the telecom operators (donor and recipient) for the "porting" (changing) of mobile number, TRAI said in a statement.

MNP allows a user to change his/her telecom operator without changing the mobile phone number. The draft suggests that a mobile subscriber shall be eligible to make a request for "porting" (changing) his mobile number upon expiry of a period of ninety days from the date of activation of his present mobile connection.

The recipient operator, within five days of receiving a written request, has to carry out subscriber verification according to the guidelines for acquiring a new user.

Upon verification, the request is to be forwarded to the donor operator (to whose network such mobile subscriber number currently belongs) for seeking its clearance.

Upon receipt of the porting request, the donor operator shall verify and communicate the details to the MNP service provider within two working days.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had issued guidelines for MNP service license in August last year and its envisaged geographical division of the country into two Number Portability Zones, each consisting of 11 licensed service areas.

Subsequently, one MNP service provider in each zone was selected -- Syniverse Technologies (in north and western India) and MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions (for east and southern India). The licenses were granted in March this year.

The MNP service provider would be responsible for establishing, operating and maintaining the MNP Clearing House and the Number Portability Database.

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