Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 3 (IANS) Over 41 million mobile subscribers have submitted requests till the end of March to port their number to a different network through mobile number portability (MNP) with 4.76 million requests made in the month alone, official data showed.

“By the end of March 2012, about 41.88 million subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number,” said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in a statement Thursday.

“In the month of March 2012, total number of subscribers who have submitted their request for MNP is 4.76 million,” it added.

The maximum number of requests have been received from Karnataka which reported 4.53 million requests followed by Andhra Pradesh at 3.99 million requests. Gujarat had 3.88 million requests while Rajasthan had 3.7 million requests.

MNP is a service which allows users to switch operators while retaining their phone numbers.

The service was implemented across the country Jan 20, while the pilot launch of the service took place in Haryana Nov 25, 2010.

To opt for MNP, a customer has to pay a maximum of Rs.19 to the new operator for ‘porting’ the number and remain with the new operator for at least three months.

The customer has to send an SMS from the existing phone to 1900. Based on this, a unique porting code will be sent by existing provider. An application then has to be filed with the new service provider mentioning the code for transferring the connection.