PTA launches Mobile Number Portability facility

Pakistan has taken the lead as the first country in South Asia to have the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) facility that provides the user an option to change the operator while keeping intact the number and the code allotted by the original operator.
The much-awaited facility was launched by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) here on Friday. "Pakistan has taken the lead by being the first country in South Asia to have the MNP facility", said Pakistan Mobile Number Database Company Limited (PMD) Chairman Tore Johnsen while talking to Business Recorder.
After Europe, he said, the system was introduced in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. The MNP system, he said, was put on test among operators' system for about three weeks before implementation.
He said that the change of operator would require only a subscriber identity module (SIM), involving no additional expenditure. The implementation of MNP system was being delayed for the last one year, reason being up gradation of the system by the operators.
The PTA had put in place all necessary equipment and arranged funding from all mobile operators in PMD fund to meet the required expenses for the MNP. A PTA official said that the MNP implementation would intensify competition among cellular operators and act as a catalyst in making the sector more competitive. The multiple players would offer innovative, high quality and cost-effective services to the consumers with system being on air, he added.
Under the portability facility, subscribers to a particular mobile operator, if not satisfied with the service, would have the option to switch over to another operator, without changing the number and code. Each operator has established its own database as well as routing calls to ported numbers.
The PTA says that cellular mobile phone subscribers have crossed the unprecedented number of 50 million, with 1.5 million subscribers joining each month, putting enormous burden on individual systems and quality of services, which promoted the need for early launching of a system that would allow changing of operators without changing the desired cellular number and code.