Bharti Airtel, the country's leading mobile phone service provider, says it is ready for number portability.
In a conference call after the announcement of quarterly results last week, joint managing director Akhil Gupta said Bharti's systems were already calibrated for the eventuality.
Cellphone cos have a rocking June | Bharti says ball is in MTN's court
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) wants countrywide mobile number portability by June 2009.
Gupta expects it to be rolled out early next year. Under number portability, a subscriber can retain his phone number even after shifting to another service provider.
Consultations are on between the TRAI, Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and operators on the modalities of executing number portability.
Internationally, the cost of a switchover is around 30 pounds or Rs 2,400, a source said.
This fee is either paid by the subscriber to the network that he's switching to or the cost is shared by the new operator and the subscriber.
Industry estimates that anything between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 3,000 crore is required as a one-time cost for upgrading the networks to enable number portability.
The move is expected to step up competition, and directly improve the quality of service because all mobile phone players would make an effort to prevent customers from shifting to competition.
GSM (global systems for mobile communications) operators such as Bharti were earlier resisting rollout of number portability.
Bharti officials said they were in favour of number portability for all fixed line and mobile rather than just the latter.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents GSM firms such as Bharti, Vodafone, Idea and Aircel, had said last year that the telecom market must mature further before number portability can be introduced.
Rival body Association for Unified Service Providers of India (AUSPI), representing CDMA (code division multiple access) players such as Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices, wrote a letter to communications minister A Raja recently, saying, "In case fixed-line number portability cannot be introduced at this point of time for any reason, technical or otherwise, mobile number portability should not be held up."
In April, TRAI chairman Nripendra Misra had written to Siddhartha Behura, secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), stating that the government should come out with a roadmap for implementation.
"Perhaps, countrywide implementation by June 2009 will facilitate planning at telecom service providers' level and Mobile Number Portability Clearing House Administrator," Misra had said.
Under license from www.3dsyndication.com
