Mobile number portability available from October 31, 2010

Today the Telecom regultory said Mobile number portability (MNP) will be implemented nationwide from Oct 31 this year with out any further delay. The Mobile Number portability allows a mobile user to change his operator while retaining the number, means if you are using a airtel number now, you can use it with any other provider like Vodafone, aircel, uninor, bsnl etc, after this facility come to existence.

Dept of Telecom made it clear that the operators must ensure that all inter-operator tests for porting the numbers from one service provider to another are completed before Sept 1, 2010.

Mobile service providers – Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Vodafone Essar, Tata Tele, Idea, STel and Aircel – are getting ready to launch high-speed 3G services from next month. BSNL said they are ready with the infrastructure to implement the MNP service.

This would be very helpful for people, who owns a number for years and not able to change the service providers because of the number change. Now you can use a specific mobile number with any providers for a small fee, when you change the providers ( like Rs.19 )

After this facility, the telecom providers will turn in to just service providers like an internet service provider. you can use the same number with any network and you can swith in to any other network whenever you want.

Anyway, it would be a good relief to techies!