New Delhi: According to a new arrangement to be introduced effective May 3 
this year, mobile phone subscribers will be free to change their service providers on a national basis, while retaining their original contact numbers. This in effect will allow a subscriber to port his number to any part of the country.
As of now, the mobile number portability (MNP) facility allows the porting of the numbers to another service provider only within a telecom circle, the jurisdiction of which, in most cases, coincides with the extent of a state.
Under the new facility, for example, if a person employed in a distant state gets transferred to a city in Karnataka, say Mangaluru, he has only to switch over to a service provider of his choice, while continuing to be connected to the same number.
A directive to this effect has been issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Feb 25.
