There was a day when we had to dial a number and wait for the operator to connect the line to the recipient. The advancement in science and technology now connects the user to his recipient by the click of a single button in seconds. India adds nearly 6 million cell phones every month to the total number of cell phone users around the world. This is a very huge number of users and the cell phone industry is the biggest industry and has a lot of consumers. It is possible to find a minimum of two mobile phone connections per family and the number is still rising. I do not think any one will deny the fact that we are all cell phone addicts.

I own a business in India and my company is one of the largest in the city. I was one of the first cell phone users in the country. Skycell was the service provider at that time. When I had bought a cell phone it costs me a lot and even the incoming calls were charged. But the company did not last long and it was taken over by some other company. I had a private number which I had bought 4 years ago.  A leading cellular company offered me a deal. The company would sponsor SIM (subscriber Identity Module) cards for all my employees and I had to spend a very meager amount for that.  All the callers in the company would be treated as a group and their calls would be free within the group. That was a very good deal. I accepted the deal, for the benefit of my employees.

My employees were very happy and for about a month everything was fine. As the numbers were permanent I had used it in the brochure and the magazines that we published for distribution. All my clients were given this number. Two months passed and a representative from the company came to me with a request. He announced that the company had to revise its plans and all calls will be charged at 10 paisa per minute within the group. I told him clearly that the employees would not like any more revisions unless it benefits them. The representative agreed to that and left the place.

The company started activating caller tunes and services without the permission of the users. They would deduct the cost from the account. I got annoyed and reported the customer care. They used to argue that we activated them and after a session of long argument the customer care officer deactivated the caller tune. After two months I received a mail from the company saying that the company wanted all the SIM cards back and the company will not provide any service as the market was down. They demanded extra money or they would stop the services. I was vexed because the numbers were already published in all the official papers and magazines. I requested them to provide me their service. They refused to.

I had to reprint all my documents, brochures, and visiting cards because of this. The companies take advantage of the consumer's inability to fight back. They treat their customers as their slaves. The service providers believe that the users are powerless because they are subscribed to them.

Now, there is no need to worry about such problems. MNP has come to the rescue. MNP stands for Mobile Number Portability; this is the technology India will implement soon. The plan was proposed long back and was suppose to be effective from 31st January 2010. But it is yet to come. Our number is dependant upon the service providers. For example the number starting from 9841 is Aircel, 9840 is Airtel, 9884 is Vodafone, 9444 is BSNL and so on. When we change our service provider our number gets changed. But with MNP enabled, every user gets a number and he can change his service provider paying a minimal fee.

The MNPs are the only way the consumers can be protected. This was implemented long before in the United States of America and Singapore. It was first instituted on 23 November 2003 in United States of America and in 2008 in Singapore. This facility will be new to India.

The MNP (Mobile Number Portability) is advantageous to the consumers and it is always a boon to the society. The only sections that will be facing the disadvantages of MNP (Mobile Number Portability) will be the service providers who fail to provide quality service. Because the consumers will switch to a better provider if the company fails to offer a good service.