The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) has sought time for upgrading the system till March 2007 to implement Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Business Recorder learnt on Wednesday.
Sources said that delay in system upgradation by PTCL and other cellular phone operators has left the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) with no other option but to announce another extension in the deadline it had set for the implementation of the system.
However, the PTA would implement the MNP system by December without waiting for PTCL, they added. The Authority has necessary equipment and funding in its Pakistan Mobile Number Portability Database Limited (PMD) fund to meet the expenses for MNP implementation. The PTA had earlier set October 2006 for switching over to MNP system.
Sources said that another reason is that some mobile companies are resisting the pro-consumer system. The MNP implementation would stimulate healthy competition among cellular companies to attract more consumers by offering quality services as under the portability facility subscribers not satisfied with services of a particular mobile operator would be able to switch to another operator without having their number changed, including the operator code.
The implementation of the portability system has been planned since last year but has been delayed because of the lack of preparation by cellular phone companies.
Pakistan would have been the first country in South Asia to introduce MNP, had the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited and other companies upgraded their system, as all ground work, including study of all models and funding equally contributed by all the operators, had been completed but the belated upgradation has been delaying implementation of the system.
PTA had set up Pakistan Mobile Number Portability Database Limited (PMD) company last year to cater to the project's needs. The implementation process and strategy for the central database is under process and each cellular operator would establish its own database as well as routing calls to ported numbers.
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