New Delhi, Jan. 19: Starting today, you will no longer need to suffer poor service of your telecom service provider. With the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, flagging off mobile number portability (MNP) nationally on Thursday, you will have the option of moving to another company’s network.
Experts feel that for high value subscribers, this should lead to lower bills. Also, companies will be forced to invest in better quality infrastructure to reduce glitches such as dropped calls.
MNP allows a subscriber to shift to another cellphone company while retaining his or her earlier number. Unwillingness to lose a number has meant that many high value subscribers were forced to put up with patchy service and high rates. A major complaint of cellphone users is that companies offer the best rates and cheapest tariff plans to new customers, but these are rarely extended to old subscribers.
Dropped calls, or calls that get terminated mid-way, are another sore spot for customers. Many younger subscribers also seek value added services at cheaper rates. Customers may also want to move to companies that can provide 3G services. The fear of losing customers will force telecom companies to improve their services.
Also, initially some mobile operators will try to poach high end customers of other mobile subscribers by offering cheap tariffs.
In fact, Idea and Vodafone have already launched advertisements to attract customers from other networks.