In December last year, the new guidelines issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) went into force now. The attempt was to make it easier to port your mobile connection from one mobile service provider, to another. Among the new rules, what surely stands out is the new guideline that a mobile number must be ported completely within 3-5 working days of the request being registered, as against almost 15 days that was common in the earlier regime. If you are looking to port your Airtel or Vodafone Idea number to Reliance Jio, thing have just become a lot simpler. And quicker.
To port your Airtel or Vodafone Idea mobile number, you will need to send a request SMS with the word ‘PORT’ followed by a space and your ten-digit mobile number which is to be ported, to 1900. Once this is done, a Unique Porting Code (UPC) will be generated, which will be received through SMS on the same phone the porting request message has been sent from. With the port code now with you, this is the time to get in touch with the mobile service provider you want to shift to—in this case Reliance Jio. You will have to fill out the necessary Customer Acquisition Form (CAF), Porting Form, mention the UPC and also complete the necessary Know Your Customer (KYC). At this point, Reliance Jio will provide you with a new SIM card. You will also receive a confirmation that the porting request process is now active. At this point, you can choose the Reliance Jio tariff plan you want. The Reliance Jio prepaid plans start at Rs 98 (with 28-days validity), and you can choose from multiple prepaid plans which offer validity period between 28-days and 365-days, with as much as 3GB data per day. The Reliance Jio Postpaid plans start at Rs 199.
You will pay Rs 6.46 as the porting fees, every time you wish to port your mobile number to another network.
But you must remember that if you are using a postpaid mobile connection, you will need to clear the bill, in other words the outstanding dues, before this process can be completed. “In the case of Post-Paid mobile connection, the subscriber has cleared 'Outstanding dues' towards the existing telecom service provider for the issued bill(s) as per normal billing cycle,” say the TRAI guidelines. If you are porting to another operator within the same circle, TRAI says it should ideally be done in 3 working days. If you are porting to another operator in another telecom circle, that should take about 5 days. The new rules will surely make it easier for users to switch between Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea, for instance.
What are the cases in which you cannot port your number to another service provider? First, any postpaid users who have not cleared their bill and outstanding amount will not be able to port, till these dues are cleared. Secondly, if you have been using the existing mobile service provider’s network for less than 90 days, you need to wait to cross the 90 day mark before you can put in a valid MNP request again. You must also ensure that there is no request pending for change of ownership of the number that is to be ported—else wait for that to complete. If your existing mobile service provider has offered services to you as part of a contract (for instance, a minimum billing period, for instance), you will need to complete that contract before you can port the number. Also, for successful MNP, the number in question must not be sub-judice or prohibited by the court of law against any status change.
(Disclaimer: News18.com is a part of Network18 Media & Investment Limited which is owned by Reliance Industries Limited that also owns Reliance Jio)
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