The much delayed mobile number portability (MNP) is now available in Haryana, but the rest of India has to wait till January 20, 2011, according to Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal.

The minister on Thursday rolled out the first phase of the MNP services from Rohtak in Haryana. Mobile number portability (MNP) is a system where now have the option of changing their service provider without changing their mobile numbers.

There are eight mobile operators in Haryana: Airtel, Idea Cellular, BSNL, Aircel, Loop, Vodafone, Etisalat and Videocon. For now, MNP will be allowed only within circles. The customer will have to pay a maximum of Rs. 19 to the new operator to change network and the new operator has the option to waive off the fee or reduce it. But the minimum stay period with one operator for consumer is three months. Both pre-paid and post-paid consumers can use MNP.

As per the eligibility criteria, there should not be any outstanding payment by way of pending bills before customers can apply for availing of MNP services, the Department of Telecom (DoT) said.

The DoT has claimed that the entire process of switching operators would take a maximum of seven days and subscribers may face disruption of services for about two hours during that period.

A Nielsen survey pointed out that high-spending, postpaid subscribers and business subscribers are likely to show a greater tendency to switch if after the mobile number portability comes in. Pre-paid, low- and medium-spend users may not be motivated much to switch over.

How to change you Mobile operator?Customers willing to exercise the option of changing their service provider without change of number will have to send an SMS from their phone to 1900.

Based on this, they will get a unique porting code as SMS from the existing service provider. The customer can then make an application in the prescribed form mentioning the code to the selected new service provider for porting of number. A period of seven days has been prescribed for completion of porting (transfer) of the mobile number to the network of the new service provider.
Src: [NDTV]