India's MNP rollout stalls

India's nationwide mobile number portability rollout stalls

Summary: Country's full number portability service, which will allow mobile users to retain their number across different telecom circles, faces a delay as the Indian Department of Telecom has yet to accept recommendations for it.

India's Department of Telecom (DoT) has yet to accept recommendations related to the implementation of the country's nationwide mobile number portability, which is originally scheduled to be effective from March. 

Secretary of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Rajeev Agrawal said at a briefing Wednesday that it had not received a response from the telecom department, and noted that telcos would require six months after DoT approves the recommendations to deploy full mobile number portability (MNP). TRAI in September had directed mobile operators to roll out nationwide MNP within six months. 

India had introduced the service in early-2010, but this enabled mobile users to retain their number when he switched operators only within a telecom circle or service area. There are 22 circles across the country, which are divided up into four groups--metro, A, B, and C circles--where metro encompasses dense population areas including Delhi and Mumbai, and the other three circles cover geographic territories of varying population sizes. 

Full or nationwide MNP would allow mobile users to retain their number even when they move between telco circles. According to a report by The Times of India, the DoT previously instructed TRAI to rethink some of its recommendations which had suggested changes to the country's license standards. 

Agrawal said TRAI issued fines totaling 22 million rupees (US$355,698) over the past four months and disconnected the telecom facilities of more than 60 real-estate and spa businesses for conducting unsolicited marketing calls. He added that the number of registered telemarketers doubled to more than 6,000 since August, after TRAI reduced the enrolment fee. 

The authority in 2013 also implemented a fine of 28 million rupees (US$452,706) on operators that did not meet service quality benchmarks. Last year, the number of complaints regarding unsolicited communication dropped to 11,200 a month from 44,000 a month in 2012.

India disappointed over mobile banking takeup

Summary: Reserve Bank of India says mobile banking adoption has been encouraging, but "below expectation", due to key factors such as device incompatibility and lack of industry collaboration.

India's central bank says mobile banking adoption in the country has been encouraging, but below expectation, due to key factors such as device incompatibility and lack of industry collaboration. In its half-yearly financial stability report released this week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said mobile could potentially be a key catalyst for expanding banking services across the country, including rural India. Over 50 percent of the population have no access to financial services.

(Source: Reserve Bank of India, December 2013)

"Helped by the rapid spread of use of mobile telephony, the growth in mobile banking has been encouraging over last three years," the central bank said. "However, the growth and acceptance of mobile banking as a channel of accessing banking service has been below expectation."

It cited several barriers to adoption, pointing to low levels of user awareness and acceptance, handsets that were not compatible with mobile banking apps, as well as the lack of collaboration and revenue-sharing models between banks and mobile operators.  

Over the past few years, the RBI had taken several steps to drive mobile banking including relaxing its regulations. For instance, in 2010, it allowed banks to undertake transactions valued at up to 1,000 rupees (US$16.23) without the need for end-to-end encryption, helping defray some of the costs of processing transactions. It also allowed the remittance of funds for disbursements in cash, which was targeted to enable rural users to send and receive money through their mobile phones.

India has the world's second-largest mobile user population with over 900 million subscribers, and 155 million across the country are expected to access the Web via their mobile devices by the first quarter of 2014.