Asia Bizz: It has now been a year since the service of Mobile Number Portability service was introduced in India, but it has been observed that the new service has not proved to be of any use to Indian subscribers.
After a year since the service was introduced in India in the month of November 2010, it was observed that just 15.4 million subscribers used the service, which is just 2 percent of the total mobile subscribers. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in its regulation on number portability, observed a 10 percent porting rate in the first 15 months.
The number in India was much lower compared to other countries. In India, just 4 to 16 percent of the subscribers used the Mobile Number Portability to change the operator in the first year.
TRAI also observed that the service was introduced in Hong Kong in the year 2000 and 27 of the subscribers used the service to shift operators. The market watchers have said that the low porting rate was due to two reasons. The first was when a subscriber goes for an operator change, he comes across many difficulties. And the second one is – when the user opts for an operator change, the current company convinces the subscriber with plenty of freebies and benefits and stops him from porting.
