Following numerous queries from the public, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) recently issued an update on the status of Mobile Number Portability. According to TRCSL, the project is currently set to select a supplier for its technical system as part of the procurement process. The regulator further stated that while the technical evaluation is already completed it expects the financial assessment to be done by January 2025.
The provision of the number portability service will commence once the procurement process is completed and an equipment supplier is finalized. The TRC previously claimed that number portability could likely be introduced by the end of 2024. However, Now it appears that the timeline has only moved further ahead.
Decades in the making waiting
Mobile Number Portability has been in discussion for well over a decade. However, the project didn’t gain real momentum until plans for implementing the service resurfaced around 2021. Once the TRC issued legal clearance, Lanka Number Portability Services (LNPS) was established in the following year to facilitate number portability.
With the Attorney General’s approval of the facility’s proposed rules and regulations, LNPS kicked off the procurement process, as per the TRC. By May 2023, the regulator opened for tender proposals over the “supply, installation, testing, and commission” of the number portability service. Then-State Minister of Technology Kanaka Herath even stated that mobile number portability would be introduced within the year.
Of course, the timeline was then later pushed to the fourth quarter of 2024 and now it looks like Mobile Number Portability won’t be realized at least until 2025. Sri Lanka remains one of the last countries in the South Asian region to not have this service. Pakistan, where the TRC took inspiration for implementation, introduced MNP as early as 2007.
In any case, time will tell how far number portability pans out, particularly given the project’s history and the diminishing consumer choices for mobile service providers.
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