Lovely professional university

Assignment-IV

Research methodology

Mobile Number Portability

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

Manu Kalia Mam

Harpreet kaur,Punjab

Swarn Ankita,Arunachal Pradesh

Gaurav Malhotra,Uttar Pradesh

ABSTRACT

Mobile Number Portability has arrived in India after many years. Mobile Number Portability
(MNP) was introduced in Haryana in December 2010 by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
and thereafter is introduced across India in January 2011. This move will intensify competition
in the already crowded mobile services market. With the implementation of MNP, subscribers
would get a wider choice and would be able to switch between service providers easily, thereby
compelling service providers to offer competitive pricing plans and offer higher service quality
to attract and retain subscribers. Mobile number portability has advantages as well as
disadvantages.MNP is attracting mostly prepaid customers and high spenders.MNP is increasing
the number of customers, as customers can easily switch from one service provider to another
without changing their mobile number.
KEYWORDS
Mobile number portability, TRAI, customers

INTRODUCTION
MEANING OF MOBILE NUMBER PORTABILITY

“Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone
number when they switch from one Access Provider (Mobile Service Operator) to another,
irrespective of the mobile technology. In other words, it enables the subscriber to retain his / her
phone number, when switching subscription from one mobile service provider to another” 1. A
customer taking service from a mobile operator (Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, etc) can retain his
mobile number when he changes to a different mobile operator with the help of Mobile Number
Portability.
“The main idea behind MNP is to increase the level of competition between service providers,
rewarding service providers with the best customer service, network coverage, and service
quality and which leads to customer service improvement”.

1
http://www.icra.in/Files/Articles/MNP%20Note%20Jan%202011.pdf
FEATURES OF MNP IN INDIA (as per regulations issued by TRAI)
Features of MNP (as per Regulations issued by TRAI)

• MNP is allowed only within a given licensed service area or telecom circle; subscribers
moving from one circle to another are not allowed to port their number.
• Subscribers are allowed to port their numbers only once in every 90 days
• Subscribers may be required to pay porting charges (if any) to the Recipient Operator
subject to a maximum of Rs. 19
• Prepaid subscribers would lose ‘balance talk time’, any non-refundable deposit upon
porting.
• Post-paid subscribers to clear all bills issued prior to the date of porting request. In case
of non-payment of any dues to the Donor Operator, the ported number would be
disconnected by the Recipient Operator
• Recipient Operator should forward porting request to the MNP service provider within 24
hours
• Donor Operator should give clearance to port the number within 4 days on receiving
request from MNP Service Provider
• On a date decided by the MNP Service Provider, the Donor Operator would be instructed
to disconnect the number within one hour; after that, the Recipient Operator would be
given one hour for activating the number of the subscriber
• Maximum time period for completing porting process – 7 days for all circles except
Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East, where the maximum time period for
completing porting process would be 15 days
• Recipient Operator to pay ‘port transaction charge’ of Rs. 19 per port to the MNP Service
Provider for processing the porting request in respect of a mobile number
• Operator to pay charges for use of MNP Service Provider’s Database for routing of calls; these charges to
be mutually negotiated between operators and MNP Service Providers

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OBJECTIVE OF STUDY:
The basic objective of our research study is to understand the Impact of Mobile Number
Portability on the Customer Preferences. We will focus on specific objectives mentioned below:
• To examine whether customers are aware of mobile number portability.

• To examine the impact of Mobile Number Portability on prepaid and postpaid customers
differently.

• To examine the impact of Mobile Number Portability on the competition among the
telecom companies especially the major players.

• NEED OF THE STUDY:

• Why people want to switch over to other network. Why govt. feels necessity
to introduce mobile number portability what is the schemes companies are
offering on portability.

• SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

• With the help of this study it will be come to know that what the impact of
mobile number portability is on consumer. And in what ratio consumers has
been switched or plan to switch in future.

LITERATURE REVIEW:
Minjung (2009) examines “the price response of wireless carriers to the introduction of number
portability. We find that wireless prices decreased in response to number portability but not
uniformly across plans. The results after research suggest that policy increased competition in the
wireless market and that the competitive impact of the policy was larger for high volume users”2.

2
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/14677862/The-Economic-Impact-of-Wireless-Number-Portability
NDTV (2010) figured that mobile no. portability service is going to be launched in Haryana on
Nov 25, 2010. This service allows users to change their operators without changing their mobile
numbers. The launch of MNP has already been delayed thrice due to different reasons. “The
MNP was to be first implemented by December 31, 2009 in all the Metro cities as well as in the
states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. But the deadline
was changed to March 31, 2010 and thereafter to June 30, 2010 because of the lack of necessary
infrastructure3.”

Umakant (2010) has figured out that “CRISIL research India’s leading Rating,Research,Risk
and Advisory company conducted a research and concluded that MNP implementation will have
a limited impact on the telecom market in india.4”Since the timing of MNP implementation
coincides with the 3G services launch,impact of MNP on incumbent operators ,which own most
of the 3G spectrum will b diffused”.

Rehnan (2010) have conducted a research on the topic”Impact of mobile number portability one
existing customers5”.They tried to find out the impact of mobile no portability on the cellular
users in karachi

Shalini (2011) has figured that put on the delay of MNP in INDIA as technology is increasing at
a very rapid speed which can churn out the idea of MNP because people are already using double
sims and they are satisfy with it which has decreased the charm of MNP among people. If we put
some light on figure mentioned in the article then we can see that 96% people are preferring pre-
paid and they can have pre-paid sims easily but some big chaps have confirmed the success and
progress of MNP in INDIA with their estimates and they expect the increase in number of
preferences for MNP in the eyes of customers.

Yogesh (2011) has mentioned in very simple words that MNP will help customers who are
facing some serious issues with the their current service providers as they can switch on to some
other subscribing company easily and also some rules which are made by TRAI for the
3
file:///H:/mobile-number-portability-to-roll-out-from-november-25-63679.htm
4
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/66086684/Mobile-number-portability
5
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/67652553/Impact-of-Mobile-Number-Portability
implementation of MNP are discussed in this article. The procedure with which customer will be
able to swap the current service provider is discussed.

Ashish (2011) reports that finally after a long wait Prime Minister is going to launch MNP
service at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi on 20th Jan 2011.Now customers would have a wide
buffet of operators to choose from.This article by Mr. Ashish Koshy also gives a glimpse of the
pros and cons of this service.The advantage being that if you are not satisfied your current
operator you can easily change your operator without having to change the number.This service
is low on cost as it costs Rs19 but requires 7 days.MNP is flexible as it supports prepaid to
postpaid migration and totally compatible with CDMA and GSM phones and the shortcomings
are also listed as it is not functional on roaming and requires a gap of 3 months for consequent
change of operators

Economic Times (2011) has stated that big chaps in telecom industry has already started
attracting customers for mobile number portability with the help of organizing campaigns putting
light on their companies. Idea being the first followed by Vodafone is organizing campaigns for
promoting their brands. Vodafone has already implemented with its MNP in Haryana and it has
been told that airtel and reliance are not so interested in promoting it because they feel no hard
change with the new service.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
Before carrying on with research paper, it is important to know that which kind of study has been
conducted in the research. In this research secondary as well as primary research has been
conducted.
RESEARCH DESIGN:
Research design is a planned sequence of the entire process involved in conducting a research
study.
These are two types of research design.
1. Exploratory research design
2. Conclusive research design
A. Descriptive research design
B. Causal research design

In this study ‘Impact of mobile number portability’ objectives, need and scope of the study has
been clearly defined and as our research is to find out the effectiveness of MNP, so the research
is Descriptive.

SAMPLING SIZE AND METHOD:

As in research fifty respondents has been chosen from Lovely Professional University,
Jalandhar. So the sampling technique used is convenient sampling technique.

ANALYTICAL TOOL USED:

To analyze the collected data from the respondents Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) tool has been used, in which each and every component has been analyzed separately
with the help of graphs.

FINDINGS:

After collecting data and analyzing the data, it is come to know that 30% of the respondents were
not aware of mobile number portability and other who knows out of them only 20% had
undergone it so, their should proper information provided by the service providers with the help
of print ads, media ads, banners ads etc. so that consumers can know what MNP exactly is. Due
to communication barrier this is not popular and known among people of India.
Maximum of the respondents were prepaid so, service providers should contact them to give
information that what are the benefits of this process, why should consumer adopt this? Many
improvements are required to run this process in India.
CONCLUSION:
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allows subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone
number when they switch from one Access Provider (Mobile Service Operator) to another,
irrespective of the mobile technology. In other words, it enables the subscriber to retain his / her
phone number, when switching subscription from one mobile service provider to another. To
find the impact of this service research has been done by taking 50 respondents of lovely
professional university, phagwara. By applying SPSS analytical tool it is come to know that out
of 50 respondents 40 respondents know about this service and out of that 40 only 18 respondents
has undergone MNP, which is very small in number. The reason behind this may be because of
unpopularity of the service. As nowadays there is cut throat competition in telecommunication
sector, all the companies are offering new tariff plans to attract costumers. But there may be
some need arises that companies like Vodafone, airtel, idea etc. adopted this service. From above
study it is also seen that most of the customers are using there current service from more than six
months which tells that they prefer to have one mobile number for their convenience, which is
good signal for MNP service. And when they are asked their choices to switch to other service
provider, most of them answered for airtel, which means this telecommunication company is
providing better tariffs and network as compare to others.
At the end it can be concluded that companies need to create awareness as well as need among
customers for this service and it should be less time consuming.

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REFERENCS:
− http://informationmadness.com/blog/25-blog/1545-india-mobile-number-portability-
complete-guide.html
− http://www.icra.in/Files/Articles/MNP%20Note%20Jan%202011.pdf
− http://www.boloji.com/business/027.html
− http://www.soi.uzh.ch/research/wp/2003/wp0303.pdf
− http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/telecommunications/2009072930336.pdf
− http://www.centralchronicle.com/viewnews.asp?articleID=20398
− http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/133054-Mobile-Number-Portability-MNP-
A-complete-guide.aspx
− file:///H:/mobile-number-portability-to-roll-out-from-november-25-63679.htm
− http://www.docstoc.com/docs/66086684/Mobile-number-portability
− http://www.docstoc.com/docs/67652553/Impact-of-Mobile-Number-Portability
− www.moneylife.in/article/78/13269.html
− www.ezinearticles.com
− http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/mnp-to-spare-
biggies-hit-small-telcos-analysts/articleshow/7331036.cms
− http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/mobile-number-
portability-idea-vodafone-lead-in-marketing-rush/articleshow/7315530.cms