Mobile number portability (MNP) enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobiletelephone numbers when

changing from one mobile network operator to another.

Contents

[hide]

• 1 General overview

• 2 Technical details

• 3 Mobile number portability in the Internet telephony / VOIP environment

• 4 Number Lookup Services

• 5 Mobile number portability by country

o 5.1 Americas

o 5.2 Asia Pacific

o 5.3 Europe

o 5.4 Middle East and Africa

• 6 See also

• 7 References

• 8 External links

[edit]General overview

MNP is implemented in different ways across the globe. The international and European standard is for a customer

wishing to port his/her number to contact the new provider (Recipient) who will then arrange necessary process with the

old provider (Donor). This is also known as 'Recipient-Led' porting. The UK is the only country to not implement a

Recipient-Led system, where a customer wishing to port his/her number is required to contact the Donor to obtain

a Porting Authorisation Code (PAC) which he/she then has to give to the Recipient. Once having received the PAC the

Recipient continues the port process by contacting the Donor. This form of porting is also known as 'Donor-Led' and has

been criticised by some industry analysts as being inefficient. It has also been observed that it may act as a customer

deterrent as well as allowing the Donor an opportunity of 'winning-back' the customer. This might lead to distortion of

competition, especially in the markets with new entrants that are yet to achieve scalability of operation.

[edit]Technical details

A significant technical aspect of MNP(Mobile Number Portability) is related to the routing of calls or mobile messages

(SMS, MMS) to a number once it has been ported. There are various flavours of call routing implementation across the

globe but the international and European best practice is via the use of a central database (CDB) of ported numbers.

Network operators generally hold local copies of CDB and query it to find out which network to send a call to. This is also

known as All Call Query (ACQ) and is highly efficient and scalable. Majority of the established and upcoming MNP
systems across the world are based on this ACQ/CDB method of call routing. One of the very few countries to not use

ACQ/CDB is the UK where calls to a number once it has been ported are still routed via the Donor network. This is also

known as 'Indirect Routing' and is highly inefficient as it is wasteful of transmission and switching capacity. Because of its

Donor dependent nature, Indirect Routing also means that if the Donor network develops a fault or goes out of business,

the customers who have ported out of that network will lose incoming calls to their numbers. The UK telecoms

regulator Ofcom completed its extended review of the UK MNP process on 29 November 2007 and mandated that

ACQ/CDB be implemented for mobile to mobile ported calls by no later than 1 September 2009, and for all other (fixed

and mobile) ported calls by no later than 31 December 2012. MNP is basically a facility to customers for the change of

network service used by them on their own mobile number (MSISDN). For example, if a customer is using AIRTEL India

Number and wants to switch to Vodafone Operator network, then using the MNP facility, the customer's number will be

same but then the customer will become the customer of Vodafone network.

In India the MNP is still in Implementation phase, not yet commercialized. The Switch, IN & STP engineers of all the

operators are working on it. As per the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) India this facility has to be available to

customers by 1 April 2010. Implementation of the MNP per MSC takes activity time of 10 to 15 working days in India. Prior

to March 2008 it took a minimum of 5 working days to port a number in the UK compared to 2 hours only in USA, as low

as 20 minutes in the Republic of Ireland, 3 minutes in Australia and even a matter of seconds inNew Zealand. On 17 July

2007, Ofcom released its conclusions from the review of UK MNP and mandated reduction of porting time to 2 working

days with effect from 1 April 2008. On 29 November 2007, Ofcom completed its consultation on further reduction to

porting time to 2 hours along with recipient led porting and mandated that near-instant (no more than 2 hours) recipient

led porting be implemented by no later than 1 September 2009.

In a decentralised model of MNP, a FNR (Flexible Number Register) may be used to manage a database of ported

out/ported in numbers for call routing.

[edit]Mobile number portability in the Internet telephony / VOIP environment

Mobile Number Portability also impacts the internet telephony, or VOIP (Voice over IP) business. A voice call originated in

the VOIP environment which is routed to a mobile phone number of a traditional mobile carrier also face challenges to

reach its destination in case the mobile phone number is ported.

VOIP is clearly identified as a Least Cost Routing (LCR) voice routing system, which is based on checking the destination

of each telephone call as it is made, and then sending the call via the network that will cost the customer the least. With

GSM number portability now in place, LCR providers can no longer rely on using the network root prefix to determine how

to route a call. Instead, they now need to know the actual current network of every number before routing the call.

Therefore, VOIP solutions also need to handle MNP when routing a voice call. In countries without a central database like

UK it might be necessary to query the GSM network about the home network a mobile phone number belongs to. As

VOIP starts to take off in the enterprise markets because of least cost routing options, it needs to provide a certain level of

reliability when handling calls.

MNP checks are important to assure that this quality of service is met; by handling MNP lookups before routing a call and

assuring that the voice call will actually work, VOIP companies give businesses the necessary reliability they look for in an

internet telephony provider. Some messaging operators provide a Voice/Network Query service, which helps not only

traditional voice carriers but also VOIP providers to query the GSM network (HLR Lookup) to find out the home network of

a ported number.

In countries such as Singapore, the most recent Mobile Number Portability solution is expected to open the doors to new

business opportunities for non-traditional telecommunication service providers like wireless broadband providers and

voice over IP (VOIP) providers.

Last but not least, in November 2008 the North American FCC (Federal Communications Commission) released an order

extending number portability obligations to interconnected VOIP providers and carriers that support VOIP providers.

[edit]Number Lookup Services

Service providers and carriers who route messages and voice calls to MNP-enabled countries might use HLR query

services to find out the correct network of a mobile phone number. A number of such services exist, which query the

operator's home location register (HLR) over the SS7 signalling network in order to determine the current network of a

specified mobile phone number prior to attempted routing of messaging or voice traffic.

[edit]Mobile number portability by country

[edit]Americas

Implementation Time to
Country date port Price Short notes References
yyyy.mm.dd days

[1]
Brazil 2008.09.01 5 Free The plan started in March 2007

Dominican [2]
2009.09.30 3–10 80.00DOP
Republic

Ecuador 2009.02.?? Query on Origin scenario

Service handled by Telcordia [3]

Mexico 2008.07.05
Technologies and Neoris

The user will assume the cost of the new sim card of
Peru 2010.01.01 7-9 Free the new mobile company that will cost around
15 PEN

[edit]Asia Pacific
 Implementation Time to
Country date port Price Short notes References
yyyy.mm.dd days

Previously prefixes
04x1, 04x2, 04x3 referred toOptus
04x4, 04x5 and 04x6 referred toVodafone [4]
Australia 2001.09.25 1 Free
043x, referred to Vodafone Hutchinson
Australia formally known as Hutchinson Australia.
04x7, 04x8, 04x9 and 0410x referred to Telstra

Service handled by Office of the [5]

Hong Kong 1999.03.01 2
Telecommunications Authority (OFTA)

To be implemented in the four metros and category-A

circles first and later to be rolled out in rest of the
country by 20 March 2010.Not yet implemented.The
regulator-DOT-has issued Letter Of Intent(LOI) to
Syniverse Technologies and Telcordia
Technologies on March-5'th 2009. As per LOI, these
companies should start the services with in six month
s of getting LOI(i.e Sep-2009).[6][7]

April 29, 2009, India 3, a joint venture with Telcordia

Technologies, was awarded a license by the

Department of Telecommunications (DoT)to

implement a mobile number portability clearinghouse

for Zone 2 in India, which includes the following 11

India 2010.03.31 max 19INR circles: Kolkata, Tamil Nadu including Chennai,
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh,

West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, North East, and Orissa.

[8]
Trai announced the rules and regulations to be

followed for the Mobile Number Portability in their

draft release on September 23, 2009. Mobile Number

Portability (MNP) allows users to retain their

numbers, while shifting to a different service provider

provided they follow the guidelines set by TRAI.

Users are expected to holding the mobile number

with a given provider for at least 90 days, before they

decide to move to the other provider.[9]

Malaysia 2008.08.29 25.00MYR The nationwide launch of the service in October 2008 [10]
 Previous prefixes DiGi - 016, 014-32, 014-35, 014-

30, 014-31 and 014-6; maxis - 012, 017 and 014-2;

celcom - 013, 019 and 014-8; u mobile - 018. Service

handled byTelcordia Technologies

Can port numbers between 021, 027, 029 and the new
022 mobile networks. Customers can port between
prepay and post pay options. Mobile numbers are in
blocks associated with the service provider. Some [11][12]
New Zealand 2007.04.01 Free
mobile plans include credit minutes for calls within
the network, you may be charged unexpectedly for a
call to a mobile that has been ported form a different
network.
Pakistan 2007.03.26 Service handled by Telcordia Technologies
Singapore 2008.06.13 Vendor for database installation is Syniverse
Taiwan 2005.10.??
Thailand 2010.??.??
[edit]Europe

Implementation Time to
Country date port Price Short notes References
yyyy.mm.dd days

[13]
Czech Republic 2006.01.15

The central solution CRDC has been re-implemented

several times. First time it was implemented
by Telcordia Technologies US, second time by Cap
Belgium 2002.10.?? Free
Gemini Sweden and Belgium, third time
by PorthusBelgium. Access to DB: setup fee : €11
000, annual fee: € 3000.

Bulgaria 2008.04.?? 2.56EUR

Greece 2004.??.?? Service handled by Telcordia Technologies

The central solutions is called OCH - Operators [14][15]

Denmark 2001.??.?? 30-60 0-29 DKK
Clearing House

Estonia 2005.01.01

[16]
Finland 2003.07.25 Free Handled by the company Numpac
 Heavily improved since May 2007 with a 10-days
France 2003.06.?? 10 maximum lead time (was taking 2 months in most
cases beforethen)

The average price charged is about € 25. The exact

[17]
Germany 2002.11.01 25 EUR amount depends on the old provider. A price limit of
€ 30.72 was set by the Bundesnetzagentur.

Ireland 2003.??.?? Free

Italy 2002.01.15

Lithuania 2005.??.?? Service handled by Telcordia Technologies

Managed by the G.I.E Telcom E.I.G. operator group

Luxembourg 2004.06.?? and developed, installed and operated by Systor
Trondheim AS.

The reference database was developed, installed and

Macedonia 2008.09.01
is presently operated by Seavus Group.

Administrated by the National Reference Database

(NRDB). The reference database was developed,
Norway 2001.??.??
installed and is presently operated by Systor
Trondheim AS.

To be administrated by the National Central Database

(PLI-CBD) run by Office of Electronic
Poland 2006.02.?? Free
Communications (UKE). 30-day max porting time is
to be reduced to 1 day.

Operated by Portabil S.A. Solution implemented by

Portugal 2002.01.??
Systor Trondheim AS of Norway.

Developed by UTI Systems based on [18]

Romania 2008.10.21 7-30 Free
the Porthus implementation

Slovenia 2005.??.?? 5 EUR 5 EUR is a maximum possible price

Spain 2000.??.??
 The largest operators formed independent company,
SNPAC AB, to procure central database (CRDB)
Sweden 2001.09.01 21 Free
solution. Implementation of CRDB is carried out by
Cap Gemini & Oracle.

AVEA and Vodafone hired Gantek to implement

central database (CRDB) solution and donated it to
Turkey 2008.11.09 6 Free Turkish Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.
Number Portability Clearinghouse service handled
byTelcordia Technologies

United Kingdom Free

[edit]Middle East and Africa

Implementation Time to
Country date port Price Short notes References
yyyy.mm.dd days

NPC serves the centralized administrative and

provisioning role of MNP. Number Portability
Egypt 2008.04.??
Clearhouse is handled byTelcordia Technologies,
whereGiza Systems is the system integrator.

Israel 2007.12.03 Free

Service is not implemented, but is still planned. TRC

started the process in 2005 and released the official [19]
Jordan 2010.06.01 1 7 JOD
bid to implement and operate MNP during September
2009.

Nigeria 2007.??.??

Implemented as a decentralized solution

Oman 2006.08.26 by Porthus for Nawras, and by Gulf Business
Machines/Telcordia for Oman Mobile.

Managed by the Centralized Clearinghouse

Approach, through the NPC (Number Portability
Saudi Arabia 2006.07.08 Clearinghouse), a product ofTelcordia Technologies.
The implementer and system integrator is Giza
Arabia.

South Africa 2006.11.10 The three operators, Vodacom SA, MTN SA,
and Cell C, formed an independent company for the
implementation and management of the central
solution. After delays, the implementation of this
solution was awarded to local company Saab Grintek
teamed up with Telcordia Technologies.