Following on from recent revelations that India's two state-controlled mobile networks would miss the year-end deadline for supporting Mobile Number Portability, the private operators have themselves said that they will also miss the deadline.

The operators told the Department of Telecom (DoT) that they cannot realistically deploy MNP before March 2010. Due to testing requirements from the DoT, it is therefore unlikely that MNP could be offered much earlier than the beginning of June.

The system was due, after prior delays, to be offered in the main cities in January and the rest of the country by April. The operators are now seeking a delay in the cities and potentially for a single nationwide launch in June.

The main area causing the delay is reported to be the interconnections between the various operators.

The DoT guidelines created geographical division of the country into two Number Portability Zones, each consisting of 11 licensed service areas. Subsequently, one operator in each zone was selected. Syniverse Technologies was granted licence for operating in Northern and Western India and MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions was granted licence for Eastern and Southern India.

According to a Nielsen survey earlier this year, it seems that close to one in five (18%) Indian mobile phone subscribers could change their mobile operator when Mobile Number Portability is introduced into the market.