Are You Ready For Mobile Number Portability (MNP) ?
A lot of you might ask, “what is Mobile Number Portability (MNP)?”
In simple, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is taking your Mobile Number from one mobile phone network to another. It enables you to retain existing mobile phone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another mobile network operator.
Example : Let say now you’re using Malaysia Celcom Operator Number (6019 333 XXXX), when MNP apply you can switch your mobile network service to their competitor either Maxis or Digi without surrender your existing number (6019 333 XXXX) to Celcom. 
Cool ?!
Portability can be a great asset in allowing freedom of choice of service provider.
Mobile number portability is useful when switching from one service provider to another; and when switching from one location to another, which could be problematic if the original service provider does not have a footprint in the area to which the subscriber proposes to move.
A number of technical and cost sharing problems need to be sorted out before introducing mobile number portability between one service provider and another.
Which is why Malaysia will need to wait at least another year. `Off-switch’ solutions involve store all or ported mobile numbers in centralised external databases that all network switches can query when trying to reach the dialled number. Alternatively, distributed or multiple external data bases could be set up with, say, each separate data base comprising only all or ported numbers from a particular service provider.
A consortium of network operators would be required to manage/coordinate such databases, unless the task is outsourced to a third party. In the case of internal databases, call forwarding, in which incoming calls are directly routed by the old to the new service provider on an ongoing basis, is the simplest. The more complex, but for the service provider more hassle-free, method is `call drop back’ under which a service provider responds to incoming calls by simply providing feedback that allows the originator to reroute calls to the new service provider.
To design efficient, simple, secure and practical porting procedures, issues that need to be addressed include: change and costs of change of SIM cards and/or handsets, authenticating the identity of customers requesting a port, communication arrangements between service providers during porting, and procedures for handling a large number of porting requests in a reasonable time.
Take a Survey about Mobile Number Portability !!!
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