Dated the 21st January, 2011
DIRECTION
Subject: Amendment of Direction No. 116-9/2009-MN dated 10th
February, 2010, issued under section 13, read with
sub-clause (i), (iii) and (v) of clause (b) of sub-section (1)
of section 11 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997) read with regulation 5 and
regulation 18 of the Telecommunication Mobile Number
Portability Regulation, 2009 (8 of 2009).
No. 116-9/2010-MN ----- Whereas the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India [hereinafter referred to as the Authority],
established under sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997) (hereinafter
referred to as the “TRAI Act”), has been entrusted with discharge
of certain functions, inter alia, to regulate the telecommunication
services, protect the interests of consumers of the telecom sector,
ensure technical compatibility and effective inter-connection
between different service providers, lay-down the standards of
quality of service to be provided by the service providers and
ensure the quality of service and conduct the periodical survey of
such service provided by the service providers so as to protect the
interest of the consumers of telecommunications service;
2. And whereas Authority has, vide its Direction dated 10th
February, 2010 (Copy enclosed), inter alia, directed the Cellular
Mobile Telephone Service Providers and Unified Access Service
Providers to set up in its mobile network a mechanism for the
purpose of receiving short message service messages from
subscribers requesting for Unique Porting Code and the said
Unique Porting Code shall consist of eight characters of which the
first two characters shall be alphabets which denote the service
provider code and the service area code specified by the Authority
in the Annexure A and Annexure B attached to the said Direction.
3. And whereas Mobile Number Portability has been
implemented in Haryana Service Area from 25th November, 2010
and the reports received from the service providers reveal that the
number of rejections occured due to entry of incorrect unique
porting code by the subscribers/Recipient Operators is quite high
which is primarily due to mistakes in either reading or writing of
alpha numeric characters as some alpha-numeric characters e.g.
‘I & 1’, ‘U & V’, ‘S & 5’ etc are prone to be wrongly entered;
4. And whereas the Authority held a meeting with Cellular
Mobile Telephone Service Providers, Unified Access Service
Providers including their associations and Mobile Number
Portability Service Providers to review the format of Unique Porting
Code for Mobile Number Portability;
5. And whereas the service providers have unanimously
requested the Authority to modify the existing format of Unique
Porting Code to make it simple by keeping the last six digits of the
said format in numeric only;
6. Now therefore, the Authority, in exercise of the powers
conferred upon it under section 13, read with sub-clauses (i), (iii)
and (v) of clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 11 of the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 ( 24 of 1997) and
regulation 5 and regulation 18 of the Telecommunication Mobile
Number Portability Regulations, 2009 (8 of 2009) and for the
reasons mentioned in the paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 above, and to
ensure compliance of terms and conditions of licence and to
protect the interest of consumers, hereby makes the following
amendment in the Direction No. 116-9/2009-MN dated 10th
February, 2010, namely:-
(a) for sub-clause (i) of clause 8 of the said Direction, the
following shall be substituted:-
“(i) a Unique Porting Code consisting of eight characters of
which the first two shall be alphabets that denote the service
provider code and service area code specified by the Authority
in the Annexure A and Annexure B attached to this Direction
(for example: TD for Tata Teleservices Ltd in Delhi Service Area)
and the remaining six characters shall contain numeric
characters 1 to 9 only, and the character ‘0’ is not allowed.”
(Sudhir Gupta)
Pr. Advisor (Mobile Network)
Encl: As above.
To,
All the CMTS, UASL, MNP Service Providers
Dated the 10th February 2010
DIRECTION
Subject: Direction under section 13, read with sub-clauses (i), (iii) and (v)
of clause (b) of sub-section (1) of section 11 of the Telecom
Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24 of 1997) read with
regulation 5 and regulation 18 of the Telecommunication Mobile
Number Portability Regulations, 2009 (8 of 2009).
No. 116-9/2009-MN ----- Whereas the Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India [hereinafter referred to as the Authority], established under sub-section
(1) of section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (24
of 1997) (hereinafter referred to as the TRAI Act, 1997), has been entrusted
with discharge of certain functions, inter alia, to regulate the
telecommunication services, protect the interests of consumers of the telecom
sector, ensure technical compatibility and effective inter-connection between
different service providers, lay-down the standards of quality of service to be
provided by the service providers and ensure the quality of service and
conduct the periodical survey of such service provided by the service
providers so as to protect the interest of the consumers of telecommunications
service;
2. And whereas the Authority had, in exercise of the powers conferred by
section 36, read with sub-clauses (i), (iii) and (v) of clause (b) of sub-section
(1) of section 11 of the TRAI Act, 1997, made the Telecommunication
Mobile Number Portability Regulations, 2009 (8 of 2009).
3. And whereas regulation 5 of the Telecommunication Mobile Number
Portability Regulations, 2009 (8 of 2009) provides that every Access Provider
shall, within sixty days from the date of these regulations coming into force,
set up, in its mobile network, a mechanism for the purpose of --
(a) receiving Short Message Service (SMS) messages from its
subscribers requesting for a unique porting code;
(b) allocating a unique porting code for each such request and
communicating it to the subscriber forthwith through Short Message
Service (SMS) message through an automated process; and
(c) retaining such unique porting number on its records for the purpose
of verification of the porting request of such subscriber to be
received eventually by it from the Mobile Number Portability
Service provider.
4. And whereas regulation 18 of the said regulations provides that without
prejudice to any of the provisions of the TRAI Act, 1997 or any other
regulations made under the said Act or directions issued there under, the
Authority may, from time to time, issue such directions as it may deem fit to
the service providers on any aspect of Mobile Number Portability for which
provisions have been made in the said regulations;
5. And whereas a meeting was held with the representatives of Cellular
Operators Association of India and Association of Unified Access Service
Provider of India (AUSPI) wherein the format for the Unique Porting Code
and the text for Short Message Service (SMS) for implementation of Mobile
Number Portabilility was decided;
6. And whereas, pursuant to the meeting referred to in the preceding
paragraph, the Authority, vide its letter dated 23rd December, 2009, intimated
the decision of the said meeting to all Access Service Providers enclosing
therewith the formats for Unique Porting Code and requested them to send
their comments thereon;
7. And whereas the comments received from the service providers were
considered by the Authority;
8. Now therefore, the Authority, in exercise of the powers conferred by
section 13, read with sub-clauses (i), (iii) and (v) of clause (b) of sub-section
(1) of section 11 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997(24
of 1997) and regulation 5 and regulation 18 of the Telecommunication Mobile
Number Portability Regulations, 2009 (8 of 2009) for ensuring compliance
with the terms and conditions of the licence and for protecting the interest of
the consumers of the telecom sector hereby directs the Cellular Mobile
Telephone Service Providers and Unified Access Service Providers to set up,
in its mobile network, a mechanism for the purpose of receiving Short
Message Service messages from its subscribers requesting for a unique
porting code which shall provide:-
(i) a Unique Porting Code consisting of 8 characters of which the first two
shall be alphabets that denote the service provider code and service area
code which have been specified by the Authority in the Annexure A and
Annexure B attached to this Direction (for example: TD for Tata
Teleservices Ltd in Delhi service area) and the remaining 6 characters
shall contain 1 to 9, A-N & P-Z only, and small letters and the alphabet
‘O’ shall not be allowed;
(ii) the Unique Porting Code allocated to a subscriber shall be valid for a
period of fifteen days from the date of request or such time till the number
is ported out, whichever is earlier, for all service areas except Jammu &
Kashmir, Assam and North East licensed areas where the validity for the
Unique Porting Code allocated to a subscriber shall be valid for a period of
thirty days from the date of request or till such time the number is ported
out, which ever is earlier, irrespective of. number of requests the
subscriber makes; and,
(iii) the Short Message Service (SMS) text for requesting Unique Porting
Code by a subscriber shall be the word ‘PORT’ followed by a space
followed by the ten digit mobile number which is to be ported which shall
be case insensitive. (i.e. it can be port or Port etc.) and in case the
subscriber’s Caller Line Identification does not match with the ten digit
mobile number, Unique Porting Code shall not be allotted but a message
shall be generated to inform such subscriber that the Caller Line
Identification does not match with the mobile number.
(Sudhir Gupta)
Advisor (Mobile Network)
To,
All the CMTS & UASL
Annexure-A
LIST OF CODES FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS
S.No. Service Provider Code
1 Aircel Ltd
Aircel Cellular Ltd D
Dishnet Wireless Ltd
2 Bharti Airtel Ltd
Bharti Hexacom Ltd A
3 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd B
4 Loop Telecom Ltd L
5 Datacom Solutions Ltd C
6 HFCL Infotel Ltd H
7 Idea Cellular Ltd
Aditya Birla Telecom Ltd I
8 Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd M
9 Reliance Communications Ltd R
10 Reliance Telecom Ltd E
11 S. Tel Ltd S
12 Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd Y
13 Spice Communications Ltd P
14 Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt. Ltd.
(Swan) W
15 Tata Teleservices Ltd
Tata Teleservices (Mah) Ltd T
16 Unitech Group of Companies U
17 Vodafone Group of Companies V
Annexure-B
LIST OF CODES FOR SERVICE AREA
SLNO Service Area Code
1 Andhra Pradesh A
2 Assam S
3 Bihar B
4 Delhi D
5 Gujarat G
6 Haryana H
7 Himachal Pradesh I
8 Jammu & Kashmir J
9 Karnataka X
10 Kerala L
11 Kolkata K
12 Madhya Pradesh Y
13 Maharashtra Z
14 Mumbai M
15 North East N
16 Orissa O
17 Punjab P
18 Rajasthan R
TamilNadu including
19 T
Chennai
20 UP-East E
21 UP-West W
22 West Bengal V
