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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Dec. 4 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has pointed out that the Department of Telecom had changed some of its recommendations on introducing Mobile Number Portability.

In a paper put out its Web site on the status of the recommendations, TRAI said while it had suggested that the entire country should be treated as a single zone, the DoT had made it into two zones.

The telecom regulator had also suggested that telecom operators could have up to 10 per cent stake in the company which will implement MNP, DoT has completely barred operators from having any stake in the company.

While TRAI had suggested a performance bank guarantee of Rs 10 crore and zero entry fee for the company which will set up the MNP system, DoT has imposed an entry fee of Rs 1 crore and bank guarantee of Rs 1 crore. The regulator has pointed out several other changes which the DoT has made compared to the original recommendations.

The regulator has also put up a legal view it had taken earlier on the powers of TRAI. The TRAI had said it was mandatory for DoT send back the recommendations to the regulator if there were any changes which the Government wanted in the original suggestions.

This assumes significance in the wake of recent claims by DoT that its decision to give fresh licences to new players on a ‘first come first served’ basis was based on the suggestions made by TRAI. This is despite the regulator clarifying repeatedly that the Government was selectively implementing its recommendations. The move to put out the status report on MNP can be seen as an attempt by the TRAI to get more transparency in the decision making process.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings

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