Wednesday, January 19, 2011

mobile number portability service in south, west India

MNP mobile number portability service in south, west India soon

Saturday, May 2, 2009, 11:53 by Tech Correspondent

Mobile users in India will now have an option of switching services without losing their current mobile number.MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions India Pvt. Ltd said that it has received the license, from DOT, to provide mobile number portability services for the next 10 years in the east and south zone.

MNP will implement the mobile number portability service in two phases.

In the first phase, the MNP service will be available from September 20, 2009.

In March 2009, the department of telecommunications granted licenses to Telcordia and Syniverse Technologies Inc, to launch the mobile number portability services across the country.

Users of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kolkata will be able to change their operators without changing their mobile numbers.

Customers can shift from their existing operator to a new operator by placing a request with their current operator.

“The process has to be completed in a maximum of two days and the mobile phone will be under a de-activated stage for just two hours, during the process,” said Ashok Sapra, MD, MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions.

Gurgaon-based MNP, which is a joint venture in which Telcordia Technologies Inc. has a 74% stake, will start testing the services by July 20, 2009.

The company’s data center and clearing house will be based in Bangalore, while its disaster management team will be based in Kolkata.

Mr. Sapra expects at least 4-6% of mobile phone users to avail this service.

However it is not yet decided whether the users availing the mobile number portability service will have to pay for it or not. The decision has to be taken by The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

In the second phase, in 2010, MNP will expand its operations in Kerala, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and West Bengal.

“We will invest USD 10 million in infrastructure for setting up the number portability clearing house and the centralized datacenter,”MNP Interconnection Telecom
Chairman (designate) and President Interconnection Solutions Telcordia Richard Jacowleff, was quoted as saying.

Rules & Criteria For Applying For Mobile Number Portability In India

India’s telecom regulator TRAI has finally announced the framework and rules of mobile number portability, which will allow mobile users to retain their mobile number while shifting to a new cellular service provider.

India had 456.74 million mobile connections as of August 2009 and is adding 12-15 million every month. With 13 operators, the regulations for mobile number portability at this scale had to be robust and airtight. After inviting opinions and comments (a list of comments can be found here) from the various stakeholders of the ecosystem, TRAI has come up with a framework that might be a little constrictive for the consumer, but it does not go easy on the operators either.

(Updated) When will Mobile Number Portability Be Operational?

Update: Please read our post 3G Auctions & Mobile Number PortabilityIn India Delayed?

Older: Subscribers in metros and category ‘A’ service areas (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra & Goa and Andhra Pradesh) will be able to apply for mobile number portability starting this new year’s eve. Others in B and C class cities will have to wait for 3 more months (March 20, 2010, to be precise) to be able to shift to a new network. They will be missing out on the deals and promotions being offered in the meantime and the launch of new telco Uninor (the recently renamed Unitech Wireless) which is expected end of year.

Criteria For Applying For MNP, 3 Month Rule

MNP facility shall be available only within a given licensed service area. So if you are moving to another city and want to retain your mobile number, MNP is not the answer. Mobile users may only apply for MNP if they want to switch networks in the same area where their existing mobile number is registered.

Our Take: This reduces the relevance and convenience for a consumer – why should portability be limited by service area? India has a migrating population of urban consumers who switch cities when they change a job. Why not relieve them of the inconvenience of changing numbers?

The 3 Month Rule. A subscriber is eligible to make a porting request only after 90 days of the date of activation of his mobile connection. If a number is already ported once, the number can again be ported only after 90 days from the date of the previous porting. TRAI has explained that this minimum period is required so as to enable the service provider to recover the customer acquisition cost.

Our Take: There are two sides to this – in the first instance, a consumer who is dissatisfied with an operators service in the first month itself is being forced to suffer for another two months. On the other hand, it will prevent a situation where consumers take undue advantage of freebies from operators as a reason for constantly switching.

Disconnected: After porting of a mobile number, if it remains disconnected for 90 days, it will be reversed back to the number range holder (original operator).

Whom To Approach? SMS the operator to which you want to switch and ask for your unique porting code, which is an alphanumeric code allocated upon request. Operators have been directed to set up a mechanism (a shortcode) to receive the SMSs and respond with the unique porting code. Subscribers will also have to give in writing their request to the operator to which they are switching and fill up a customer acquisition form, which the operator will verify.

Operator’s Task: After verifying the porting code, identity and address of the user, the recipient operator (which the subscriber is joining) has to forward details to the mobile number portability service provider within 24 hours.The operator has to pay a ‘per port transaction’ charge for each request forwarded by it to the MNP provider. They would have to examine the request carefully as there is no provision for refund of porting charges from the MNP provider.

Download: TRAI’s Regulations For Mobile Number Portability

Price? Users will have to pay a porting charge to the operator to which you are switching. The price has not been fixed yet and could be anywhere between Rs. 20 to Rs. 200. You will not need to pay a penny to the operator you are leaving.

No Dues. The subscriber making the porting request should clear all the bills issued prior to the date of porting request. He shall provide a written undertaking that he has already paid all billed dues as on the date of the request for porting and that he shall pay dues to the operator till its eventual porting. In the event of non-payment of any such dues to, the ported mobile number shall be liable to be disconnected.

Prepaid Users: Upon porting of the mobile number, the balance amount of talk time at the time of porting shall lapse.

Legal Criteria. MNP will not be permitted if there is a pending request for change of ownership of the mobile number; if it is sub-judice and if the porting has been prohibited by a court. In case a subscriber has not complied with exit clauses in his contractual obligations, the request can be rejected.

Changed My Mind. A subscriber may withdraw his porting request within 24 hours of its submission. However, the porting charges are not refundable.

Routing: Once the donor operator has disconnected the mobile number and the recipient operator has activated it, the MNP provider allocates the corresponding Location Routing Number to the ported number in the Number Portability Database and broadcasts the updated Location Routing Number along with the ported mobile number to all Access Providers and International Long Distance Operators who shall update their respective Local Number Portability Database.

Per Port Transaction Charges: Recipient operators have to pay the MNP provider per port transaction charges on a monthly basis.

Interconnect Agreements: All existing interconnect agreements and arrangements between Access Providers, National Long Distance Operators and
International Long Distance Operators shall stand amended so as to conform to the provisions of these regulations as regards routing of calls to and from ported mobile numbers.

How Long Will It Take? The porting process will take a maximum time period of 4 days in all licensed service areas except in the case of J&K, Assam and North East where the maximum time allowed is 12 days. Weekends are excluded from this time frame.

No Service Period: The window period for disconnection and activation by operators has been kept at one hour each, so the maximum downtime for the subscriber will be two hours.

(with inputs from Nikhil Pahwa)

Mobile number portability:

Mobile number portability: Pan-India rollout today

NDTV Correspondent, January 20, 2011

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is slated to flag off the nationwide roll-out of mobile number portability today, a move that will allow users to switch operators without losing their phone numbers and will force telecom providers to improve the quality of their services.

"I think it's a great step forward for the consumer, as it enhances choice and brings in more competition, because the more efficient you are as a service provider, the more likely that consumer will choose you," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said.

MNP services were first launched in Haryana in November last year. Nevertheless, companies like Idea Cellular and Vodafone started marketing their services to subscribers in other parts of the country that are looking at switching operators even before MNP services were rolled out.

Idea Cellular, which started the 'No idea? Get Idea' campaign to woo the subscribers of rival telecom companies has also set up a toll-free line to assist customers looking to switch operators.

More operators are expected to undertake similar activities to retain their subscribers, with competition likely to heat up following the nationwide roll-out of MNP services, with telecom companies poaching their rivals' subscribers.

On tariffs, Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL) President and Chief Executive Officer Vsevolod Rozanov, which offers services under the brand MTS, said, "I think tariffs will go down further especially if we speak about the post-paid customer base that is where we are likely to see the ARPU going down."

"In the pre-paid segment, I doubt a significant change in their tariffs or profitability," he said.

However, analysts feel there might not be a huge impact on the revenues of the telecom operators.

"For the first 3 to 6 months, we might see the churn going up to 6 to 7 per cent from the current levels of about 4 per cent per month. But then it will stabilise and we don't expect much impact on revenues either," Ernst & Young (E&Y) Partner and Telecom Industry Leader Prashant Singhal said.

Singhal added that MNP is expected to be more of an urban phenomenon than a rural one.

Operators also seem upbeat on MNP. "Overall, it's a good move for the customers. It puts the service providers on their toes and will make them focus on delivering value to the consumers, giving them the power to choose," COAI said.

Agrees Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh, "We expect similar churn as normally happens. So there is no different impact (because of MNP). In fact, it's good for the subscribers."

Software portability

Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming. Portability is the software codebase feature to be able to reuse the existing code instead of creating new code when moving software from an environment to another. The prerequirement for portability is the generalized abstraction between the application logic and system interfaces. When one is targeting several platforms with the same application, portability is the key issue for development cost reduction.

This article is about preparing software for being optimally portable. The work required when the portability is found to be insufficient, is described in the article Porting.

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[edit] Strategies for portability

Software portability may be achieved on three different levels:

Installed program files may be transferred to another computer.
The program may be reinstalled (from the distribution files) on another computer.
The source files may be compiled for another computer.

These alternatives were ranked for decreasing user-friendliness, and hence decreasing system quality ambition.

Which of these user-friendliness levels is obtainable, depends on the degree of similarity between the systems ported between.

[edit] Similar systems

When the same operating system version is installed on two compatible computers, it is often possible to transfer one or more program files between them, but the software will generally have to be prepared in a special manner: It must be decided which program libraries can be assumed to exist on the target computer, and which must be included with the application package. A portable application intended to run from a USB stick demonstrates this ultimate portability. It is designed to leave no traces on the computer it is installed on. This property is not required for the present situation, when the program is supposed to remain on this computer. But if the program is self-contained in e.g. its own directory, it will be easier to port it on to a third system.

[edit] Different operating systems, using similar processors

When the systems in question are using similar processors (in practice: x86-compatible processors), they will execute the low-level program instructions in the same manner, but the system calls are likely to differ between different operating systems. New operating systems of UNIX heritage — including Linux, BSD, Solaris and MacOS X – are able to achieve such software portability by using the POSIX standard for calling OS functions. Such POSIX-based programs can be used in Windows by means of interface software such as Cygwin.

[edit] Different processors

Many people write programs that require the Intel-compatible 32 bit x86 instruction set, even though there is another instruction set architecture used by more 32 bit CPUs. It is mainly for the smallest (pocket-sized) computers that alternative processors, such as ARM architecture, are used, but these are generally thought to require less sophisticated programs. Web applications are required to be processor independent, so using web programming techniques is a popular method for achieving portability, and this programming strategy is convenient, even when quite similar systems are targeted. The program can then be written in JavaScript, which can run in a common web browser, which may now be assumed to have a Java package containing the Java virtual machine and its Java Class Library. Such web applications must, for security reasons, have limited powers on the host computer, especially when it comes to reading and writing files. Non-web programs, installed upon a computer in the normal manner, can have full powers, and yet achieve system portability by linking to the Java package. By using Java bytecode instructions instead of conventional processor dependent machine code, maximum software portability is achieved. This doesn't mean the programs have to be written in Java, as compilers for several other languages can generate Java bytecode: Jruby does it from Ruby programs, Jython from Python programs, and there are several others.

[edit] Recompilation

Porting a program by compiling and linking it again is a valid portability strategy if the porting is to be done by programmers, and the need for porting by users is disregarded. It is then wise to write the program in a programming language for which there are compatible compilers on the interesting platforms.

It is possible for users to port software in this way if the source code is available to them, but this will normally be a demanding procedure, except for technically advanced users. An automated compile/link, using a Make tool, is in principle a simple procedure, but when something goes wrong, the error messages from a compiler or linker are likely to be too demanding for the end users. Some Linux distros distribute software to their users in source form, but it may then be assumed the users are running at least the same Linux distro.