The consumers of the mobile market in India, that is known to be one of the biggest in the entire Asian continent, now have to wait for some more time for the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) feature, that was scheduled to be introduced on March 31st,2010. The MNP that has been marred by delays is one of the services that, the consumers and wireless networks alike are most looking forward too. This service was initially marked for a launch in the month of December last year, but was later postponed with a deadline for March 31 of this year.

Mobile Number Portability or MNP will basically enable the users to retain their existing mobile numbers and switch to different wireless network providers. This would prove extremely useful for those users, who are running post paid accounts, are severely unhappy with their services, but in order to keep their mobile numbers active, are stuck with their current service providers. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), by the month of January this year, there were an estimated 545 million mobile subscribers.

The delay in the roll of the MNP has been attributed to wireless networks, who haven’t been able to provide the much needed upgrade to their infrastructure. The Minister of State for Communications
and IT, Mr. Gurudas Kamat, while speaking to the upper house (Rajya Sabha) of the Parliament of India stated that, even after the upgrade to the networks, the country’s Department of Telecommunications will have to carry out and acceptance test to ensure that, the new system works.

Via PC World