COIMBATORE: If competition offers choice, portability offers convenience. When customers get both, they go in for a change. A year after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) allowed mobile phone subscribers to switch to a competitively packaged service with the convenience of retaining their phone number, over 2.92 crore Indians have changed their telecom operator. According to Union Ministry of Communications data, ever since the mobile number portability was introduced in January 2011, 2,92,40,858 subscribers had opted for it.In Tamil Nadu, 18.31 lakh subscribers had switched to a new service provider at the end of December 2011. Karnataka, which has a vast upwardly mobile population in Bangalore, witnessed the highest number of shift in the country. Service providers there honoured a whopping 28.33 lakh requests for portability. Gujarat comes next with 27.98 lakh subscribers followed by AP with 26.87 lakh customers looking for a better service. The lowest portability of 4,793 subscribers was in Jammu and Kashmir.Analysts said the highest portability requests (33 per cent) came in April 2011. In December alone, 34 lakh people opted for a new service provider, a jump of 13.17 per cent from November 2011. “Most requests come from young subscribers who are attracted by a better package with loads of free talk time,” says Shanmuganathan, a multiple SIM card dealer.
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