Telecom regulator TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) slashed the charges for mobile number portability by almost 79 per cent to a maximum of Rs 4.
The prescribed ceiling for mobile number portability rates was Rs 19, so far. TRAI’s latest move means that subscribers cannot be charged more than Rs 4 for their network port out requests but the recipient operators are “free to charge” a lesser amount from them for Mobile Number Portability (MNP).
Notifying the regulation to this effect, TRAI said it has “Decided that the per port transaction charge may be reduced as the costs of operations of Mobile Number Portability Service Providers (MNPSPs) have substantially gone down and the volume of MNP traffic has increased”. TRAI had initiated a consultation process to review these charges in mid-December and followed it up with an open house discussion on the issue on January 16.
