China's
MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) plans to start trial operation
of mobile phone number portability service in Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Hainan
Province in October 2010, according to China's Nanfang Daily. It is reported that
MIIT has completed testing projects in Tianjin, and the ministry plans to
announce details and schedules of the commercial trial around August 20, 2010. As
per the portability service, mobile phone users are allowed to switch to
different telecom operators and enjoy the new services while using their
original mobile phone numbers.
The
three-year commercial trial of the portability service is projected to be divided
into three phases. In the first phase, mobile phone users can change from more
competitive telecom operators to less competitive operators. In phase two, 2G
service subscribers of one of the three major telecom operators, China Mobile,
China Telecom, and China Unicom, are able to switch to other two 2G service
providers. During the last phase, 3G subscribers of China Unicom can change to
China Telecom's network service and vice versa. However, if China Mobile's 3G
subscribers wish to switch to the other two telecom operators, they have to
change mobile phone numbers.