Haryana leads the MNP race

According to the data that was recently released by TRAI, Haryana is the forerunner in terms of the requests received for switching the operator. In the northern region Haryana has been leading in terms of the interests that has been shown by the state by the subscribers in the MNP scheme with almost 212, 000 requests received from the region.

Notably, MNP services were first launched in Haryana in November last year and after that there was a nation wide launch on Jan 20 . After January 20 there are around three lakh requests from the northern region that have been received by the various mobile operators for the MNP services.

Mobile Number Portability which was being talk of the town after 3G in last year has finally started showing that it can actually give sleepless nights to the teleco's which are already in fierce competition. The quantum number is an ample proof of the seriousness that MNP is posing on the teleco's and is also clearly dictating the various trends that are fast emerging Post MNP launch like the number of shifts have been made has been more for CDMA subscribers who are fast opting for GSM base.

Also, With an affordable amount of Rs. 19 as the porting charge, the subscribers are also willing to experiment and go for the change. Interestingly, MTNL and Bharti are waiving all charges, including the Rs19 porting fee, SIM card charges and activation fees.

The telecos had stated feeling the heat of MNP even before it was placed in the market firm. The reason that Idea Cellular and Vodafone had started marketing their services even before the nationwide roll-out of MNP to entice the subscribers from other networks. The biggest gainers till now has been Idea which has been able to get a net addition of 35,000 subscribers from other networks in the first 10 days since MNP services were started. Vodafone also through its innovative and vigorous advertisements has gained a substantial figure of of 30,000 subscribers in the inception on the MNP services.

Also , it is worth nothing that the new entrants in the Indian telecom space have been able to gain as much as 14% of the total subscriber pie(as stated by TRAI) by 2010. So, with the pace that the new entrants are moving, it is clearly visible that MNP can give a new lease of life to them. Till now it seems visible that another user paradigm awaits the Indian telecom diaspora with MNP making a niche for itself .

Archana Singh

archanasi@cybermedia.co.in