Mobile Number Portability

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) gives more power to the consumers in the cellular world by enabling them to retain the number even after changing its service provider. Telecom operators are now in a race to improvise their customer services, improve QoS and mold consumer focused MNP retention packages to reduce churning out. This is the highest stage of consumerism in mobile communication industry and it will create opportunities and threat for telecom companies.

MNP is a very simple process from the customer perspective but it triggers a bit complicated process and a string of actions in the operators end. The subscriber, recipient/new service provider, donor/current service provider and MNP operator are the stakeholders in mobile number portability. There are two service models to porting a number; the donor lead porting and the recipient lead porting. Most of the countries who have initiated the MNP service adopted the latter since it is a subscriber friendly procedure. As a customer one should identify the right reason for changing the service provider, since you have to be with the new provider for at least 90 days before availing the MNP service.

MNP Procedures in India

India, the largest telecom market with many operators and less service rates has chosen the recipient lead approach in MNP. In this procedure the customer who decides to avail the MNP service has to approach the new service provider and obtain the customer acquisition form (CAF) and the porting form. Before submitting the form the customer has to obtain the Unique Porting Code (UPC) from the donor. To obtain this number send SMS to 1900 with text ‘PORT’ followed by space followed by your 10 digit mobile number that you want to port. This auto generated 8 digit code has a validity of 15 days. Fill this code in the porting form and submit both the forms along with the required documents and an undertaking that you will clear all the dues with the donor.

The recipient will send this porting request to the concerned MNPO for the backend porting process within 24 hours. MNPO verifies this request from the recipient and forward it find the request is invalid or the number fails to meet the porting criteria then it reject the request and inform the recipient the same. The donor who receives the successful requests from the MNPO will do the further investigation and sends the confirmation or rejection message to the MNPO. If the donor fails to communicate it within 4 days then the MNPO communicate the deactivation and reactivation of the number to the recipient and the donor and it will be communicated to the user by recipient.

The new service provider will intimate you the date and time of porting on your mobile phone. The complete change over will take place on the 7th working day and there will be a downtime of 2 hours on that day. After the date and time specified on the intimation message, the user can start using the new SIM card provided by the new service provider.

MNP Post implementation analysis in India

Customers are the big gainers in this initiative since they have the option now to switch over to the suitable mobile service provider without compromising the number. Reports show that over 38 lakh customers opted for the mobile number portability. But are they successfully closed? The recent reports unveiled the fact that the customers who have applied to switch to a new network complain they are facing issues and most of issues are due to the existing provider is not allowing the subscriber to switch over.MNP war has revealed the true colors of the telecom companies.

Telecom companies have introduced the customer focused retention packages and welcome packages to increase their customer base. Each company includes more free Local calls, STD calls, SMS and lower the call rates in their offers.

The Gainers and Losers according to the press release PDF from COAI, dated 18th March 2011 is given below

Operators	Total Subscribes in millions	Subscribers Ported in	% Subs ported in	Subs ported out	% Subs Ported in	Net additions	% Net additions
Vodafone	127.36	488,250	0.38	295,489	0.23	192,761	0.15
Idea	84.29	391,191	0.46	240,402	0.29	150,789	0.18
Bharti Airtel	155.80	530,615	0.34	382,400	0.25	148,215	0.10
Aircel	51.83	162,664	0.31	117,822	0.23	44,842	0.09
Uninor	20.31	31,019	0.15	24,689	0.12	6,330	0.03
Videocon	6.01	5,404	0.09	11,633	0.19	- 6,229	-0.10
MTNL	5.43	3,793	0.07	14,851	0.27	-11,052	-0.20
TTSL	86.05	197,404	0.23	236,793	0.28	-39,389	-0.05
BSNL	88.82	107,724	0.12	257,817	0.29	-150,093	-0.17
Reliance	128.87	44,753	0.03	351,170	0.27	-306,417	-0.24

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_number_portability
http://www.ciol.com/Technology/Networking/Interviews/Indias-MNP-model-will-be-a-success-Syniverse/12210131433/0/

Fixed Mobile Convergence

Fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) is a technology innovation which helps seamless connectivity between fixed and wireless telecommunications networks. This innovation allows the cellular phone to work smoothly with the fixed line network infrastructure and can be switched between wired and wireless networks.

FMC for voice should merge the capabilities of the desk and mobile phones to make an organization’s voice capabilities just as mobile as email and data, so mobile workers can be reached at a single phone number, manage a single voice mail box, access advanced desk phone features and transition calls to and from the desk phone no matter where they are. Since a single number and voice mail concept can be achieved by FMC, the clients and colleagues don’t have to try multiple numbers to reach mobile workers which creates communication delays.

How are organizations benefited by implementing enterprise FMC?

The current economic climate is encouraging businesses to become more mobile and at the same time reduce the overall operational cost. Since the mobile call charges are forming a major part in the corporate expenditure the implementation of the enterprise FMC can reduce the cost for the mobile calls.

The FMC solution is more helpful to the enterprise where the delay in communication costs a valuable business. The solutions to getting the office mails, data and applications to the cell phone have already been implemented by many of the organizations in order to increase the productivity. Considering the fact that the number of mobile/remote workers continue to increase, the organizations have proactively implement a significant solution to get the organization’s fixed voice services to mobile device. This will not only reduce the cost but also increase the employee satisfaction.

The extension-to-cellular is a PBX-based software solution that bridges the gap between the enterprise telephone system and external mobile networks. In this solution your mobile number is programmed in the PBX against your office number and when somebody calls your office extension the software accesses the user profiles to determine which phones and devices rings simultaneously or sequentially.

Articles related to FMC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_FMC
http://www.it-director.com/enterprise/technology/content.php?cid=11361
http://www.damovo.co.uk/mobility.html

Fixed – To –Mobile

Most of the people around the world use the mobile phones as their preferred device for communication and the percentage of the mobile phone calls are drastically escalating over the period. The cost of calling from a fixed line to a mobile phone was expensive in the past due to the charges which adds to make the connection between two technologies, the mobile and the fixed line.

The invention of the F2M GSM gateway was a good news for the business category since this can reduce the total cost of fixed to mobile phone calls. A GSM gateway connects to a business telephone system in the same way that a traditional analog PSTN or Digital ISDN line does. A GSM Gateway uses the SIM cards to enable calls directly to the mobile phone network. The mobile phone tariff used in the gateway will determine the cost of calls.

The GSM gateway hub contains normally two or more mobile SIM cards. When the user makes the calls from the fixed phone to a mobile, it will land in one of the SIM card installed in the gateway and then connect to the PLMN network as a mobile to mobile call which will reduce the call rates.

The telecom providers offer this service in two flavors. One offering is, the customer purchases the device with a onetime charge and will be there after charged for the usage. In the other offering the customer subscribes this as a managed service where the provider manages the equipments and the volume of calls landing in the hub. In this case the customer will be charged a monthly recurring fee in addition to the usage charge.

There are different types of GSM gateways in the market which can be used with different fixed line technologies like PSTN, ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI etc. Legitimacy of using these devices is based on the telecom rules and regulations in each country.

Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC)

Telemarketing has emerged as one of the simplest and cost efficient tool for marketing products. A large number of these ‘telemarketing’ calls and SMSs are unsolicited, i.e. the receiving party does not want to receive such calls or messages. Such messages disturb the recipients, intrude into their privacy, and impose a cost in terms of time and effort. We can term such type of calls or messages as Unsolicited Commercial Communications (UCC).

Unsolicited commercial communication means any message, through telecommunications service, which is transmitted for the purpose of informing about, or soliciting or promoting any commercial transaction in relation to goods, investments or services which a subscriber does not want to receive. Why most of the telemarketing calls are made to the mobile phones is because the subscribers have their mobile phones with them at all times and hence can be reached any time.

After receiving a lot of complaints from the subscribers the governments and TRAs imposed a regulation on the telecom operators to maintain a registry of subscribers who doesn’t want to receive such communications. In the year of 2007, TRAI, telecom regulatory authority of India commissioned a common repository, NDND Registry, with the primary objective to curb unsolicited commercial communication.

After the establishment of NDNC registry, Telephone subscriber (Landline or mobile) who does not wish to receive UCC, can register their telephone number with their telecom service provider for inclusion in the NDNC. For customers who would like to register/de-register their request for NDNC registry may dial 1909 or SMS to 1909 with keywords 'START DND' for registration and 'STOP DND' for de-registration.

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)

Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is a protocol, providing session-based communication, used by GSM cell phones to communicate with the service provider's applications. This is using text based messaging within an open session between the user and the application. The USSC service, which is implemented in the USSD center, exchanges the USSD data between the mobile phone and the application server.

Is this similar to SMS? No, USSD is session based, unlike SMS, which is a store-and-forward technology with transaction capabilities. Most of the user interactive applications hug this standard because of the session-based feature and less response time.

The standard can be used to create value added services for operators, service providers, and enablers in the mobile interaction industry. Some of the well known USSD based applications offered by the telecom operators are prepaid balance inquiry, top-up, caller tune selections, balance transfer etc. In all these applications what we are doing is simply sending preformatted text messages to a short code published by the service provider. The USSD center which receives these messages interprets and invokes the corresponding applications to retrieve the desired results and present it to the user.

Pay As You Go(PAYG)

Pay As You Go Plan is getting more popularity among mobile users these days. A PAYG plan means, No Contracts, No monthly payments and No exit charges. This service gives the freedom to pay for the service usage. A prepaid connection is also called as a PAYGO Phone.

An example for a common mobile PAYG service is mobile 3G service which comes along with a prepaid connection. This service will be activated when you are trying to browse, without connecting to a wireless hotspot .The prepaid amount in your mobile will be deducted for the usage of 3G service as per the PAYG Plan.

Pay as you go services are meant especially for the students, those who cannot pay monthly charges as per the contract or those who doesn’t use the service frequently. PAYG service rates are a bit higher than the rates for services with a contract.

Find Me/Follow Me Service

An advanced call forwarding facility provided by most of the telecom providers in the world.

Find Me service refers to the ability to receive incoming calls at any location by forwarding the calls either in sequence or at the same time, to a list of numbers. Follow Me automatically routes your calls to any of the designated numbers, anywhere in the world, following a schedule you provide.

The numbers may be called simultaneously or sequentially, either in a preferred order or in accordance with the user's scheduled activities and locations. Once the list has been called and if no connection is made, the system may route the call to voice mail.

If you have subscribed for Find Me/Follow Me service then anyone can reach you any time, with one number to dial. Follow-Me is indispensible for any enterprise that cannot afford to miss calls or have calls left unanswered. The employees can have all their incoming calls seamlessly transferred to their mobile phones or land line based on the schedule they have configured.

To setup this service the user has to subscribe for the Find Me/Follow Me service. Login to the service provider’s portal using the user credentials availed on subscription. Create a Find Me/Follow Me profile and add the designated phone numbers with its sequences and work schedule information.