ISLAMABAD, Feb 1: After a delay of 20 months, the government has finally come up with a plan to introduce the mobile number portability (MNP) facility on an experiment basis from February 20.

The soft launch will also pave the way for the final roll out of the facility from March 23.

The MNP will enable cellphone subscribers to retain their phone numbers even if they decided to change the mobile operator due to lack of service quality. The subscribers can also retain their original dialling code even after the change of the operating company.

An official source in the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) told Dawn that comprehensive work had been done regarding technical upgradation and at an approximate cost of Rs200 million the plan was ready to be implemented from March 23.

If implemented, Pakistan will be the first country in the region to successfully implement the MNP. Currently, the facility is in vogue in some European countries, where the teledensity has reached its optimal level.

This is the third time that the MNP roll-out has been deferred since it took time to settle guidelines and finalise cost issues. When the concept was introduced in early 2004, the idea was resisted by certain cellular companies fearing that they might lose their subscriber base due to frequent complaints of service quality.

Earlier, it was decided that the cellular mobile operators would implement the facility from the first week of May 2005. After realising the actual ground challenges, the implementation date was extended to October 2006.

The PTA believed that the introduction of this facility would foster effective competition and establish competitive telecom regimes with multiple players offering innovative and high quality cost effective services to the consumers.

Recently Chairman PTA Shahzada Alam Malik had conceded that the delay in the implementation of the MNP was due to the slow upgradation of existing facilities by the PTCL.

The source said the PTA had already prepared regulations for MNP after forming a supervisory board comprising chief executives of all cellular mobile telephone operators and a representative from the PTA in 2005.

A company, Pakistan Mobile Number Portability Database (PMD) was also established in October 2005 to look after central database requirements.

Attended by all mobile operators and the PTCL, the PMD has already met for over ten times to decide issues like onward routing charges, porting process fee and process guidelines.