Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), in a consultation paper has asked the telecom service providers to review “per port transaction cost” and other mobile porting related costs. Since last one year, mobile number portability (MNP) has mitigated drastically which has led the regulator to issue a consultation paper relating to the mobile portability.
The portability cost is the amount service providers pay to Mobile number portability service provider (MNPSP) for switching from one network to other. Earlier, the regulator pegged this at ₹4 from the previous ₹19.
“Now, mergers of some of the major TSPs and closure of services by many TSPs have been witnessed during the last one year. The financial and non-financial information for 2017-18 is now available. Porting data for the last one year shows that the number of port requests per month is declining,” TRAI said.
The consultation paper was issued in the backdrop of telecom operators continuously asking for a lower portability cost, while MNPSP has been complaining about the falling revenue due to the low portability cost.
Last year TRAI slashed the portability cost to ₹4 from the previous amount of ₹19. This was the first time TRAI changed this cost since 2009.
Along with the cost, it also asked for the TSP’s view on the methodology used for calculating “per port transaction charge”.
The telecom regulator, in a list consisting of six questions, also asked that “While calculating ‘Per Port Transaction Charge’, whether the total number of MNP requests received by MNPSP or successfully ported numbers be considered?” the consultation paper read.