China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) reaffirmed on November 9 that it will kick off the trial operation of mobile phone number portability service in Tianjin municipality and Hainan Province on November 22 instead of in October 2010 as announced earlier in August 2010, the Xinhua News Agency reported on November 10. Through the portability service, mobile phone users are able to switch to different telecom service provided by mobile networks of three leading Chinese telecom operators - China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom - without having to change their original mobile phone numbers, according to the same source.

 

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.