1 in 4 mobile subscribers who ported their number in the last 24 months struggled with the process

September 29, 2023, New Delhi: The telecom regulator TRAI earlier this week suggested changes to the mobile number portability (MNP) rules to include safeguards against frauds and has sought stakeholder comments on the Draft Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Ninth Amendment) Regulations, by October 25th, 2023.

The new amendment requires the donor operator to send demographic details of the customer seeking portability with the porting operator (the network which the customer is porting to) required to match them with customer’s submission. This is likely to make things worse for consumers unless the operators effectively streamline the process of submission and matching.

Over the last 24 months, LocalCircles has been receiving consumer grievances when trying to port their mobile numbers. The common complaint is the service gap where the original service provider or donor operator barred the number from sending outgoing messages, or outgoing calls, and took a lot of time to process the request and hence delayed the porting and starting of the service with the porting operator. Given these complaints LocalCircles had initiated a survey to understand the experience of telecom consumers while porting a mobile number from one mobile service provider to another in the last 2 years. It then sought to know the issues they faced when trying to port a mobile number to a different service provider during the period. The survey received more than 23,000 responses from citizens residing across 311 districts of India. 62% respondents were men while 38% respondents were women. 44% respondents were from tier 1, 32% from tier 2 and 24% respondents were from tier 3, 4 and rural districts.

Only 47% consumers who ported their number to a different mobile service provider rate the process as easy; 25% rate it to be difficult

The first question in the survey asked consumers, “How was your experience of porting a mobile number from one mobile service provider to another in the last 2 years?” In response, 11% of consumers said the process was “Very difficult”, and 14% said it was “Quite difficult”. Breaking down the poll, 23% of consumers said it “Wasn’t difficult but wasn’t easy either”, 29% said it was “Quite easy”, and 18% said “Very easy”. 5% couldn’t say. On an aggregate basis, only 47% of consumers who ported their number to a different mobile service provider rate the process as easy while 25% rate it to be difficult. This question received 12,180 responses.

Consumers say their original mobile service operator created bottlenecks or did slow processing when they tried to port their number to a new operator

The next question in the survey asked consumers, “What all issues did you face when trying to port a mobile number to a different service provider in the last 2 years?” In response, 11% said “The original service provider barred the number from sending outgoing messages”, 11% said “The original service provider barred the number from sending outgoing calls”, and 24% said “The original service provider tool a lot of time to process the request”. Breaking down the poll, 3% said “The new service provider took a lot of time to process the portability application and activation despite it being approved by the original service provider”, and another 3% cited “Other reasons”. There were, however, 32% of consumers who “Did not face any issues porting any number”. On an aggregate basis, nearly 1 in 2 consumers who tried porting their mobile number say their original mobile service operator created bottleneck or did slow processing when they tried to port their number to a new operator. This question received 11,648 responses.

In summary, the findings of the survey indicate that 1 in 4 mobile subscribers struggled while porting their number from one mobile operator to another where according to them, their original mobile service operator created bottleneck or did slow processing when they tried to port their number to a new operator. This indicates that there are improvements that are urgently needed on the process front that TRAI needs to work with the operators on to make MNP more subscriber friendly. It also means that the new amendment by TRAI that requires the donor operator to send demographic details of the customer seeking portability with the porting operator (the network which the customer is porting to) required to match them with customer’s submission should be implemented only when the operators have fixed the existing broken processes and effectively automated, tested and streamlined the process of submission and matching subscriber’s demographics.

LocalCircles will be sharing the findings of this pan India survey with TRAI and the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) so that the pulse of the mobile subscriber can be considered as Mobile Number Portability (Ninth Amendment) Regulations are finalized.