It’s time to strip out the extra ‘0‘ or the famous Indian country code ‘+91‘ from phone numbers in your contact list, as you can now call STD phone numbers without adding 0 or +91 prefix to them. This tactical implementation from Indian telecom operators comes after the recent Department of Telecom (DoT) amendment of national numbering plan (NNP) for enabling all India full Mobile number portability (MNP).
With the removal of ‘0’or ‘+91’ prefix, users can freely dial any phone numbers within the same telecom circle as well as inter circle. This simplifies the overall dealing pattern and removes the distinction between local and STD call. Also, this leads to an important step towards achieving the goal of full mobile number portability (MNP). With full MNP, users can easily change their telecom operator without changing their phone number from anywhere in India irrespective of telecom circles. For example, if you are from Bangalore and moved to Mumbai, you can easily port to a telecom operator in the Mumbai telecom circle without losing your phone number.
Earlier DoT has set a deadline on May 3rd, 2015 for Indian telecom companies to take necessary steps to enable full mobile number portability. This date was extended further to another two months, for operators to fully implement the MNP across the country. This was done, as telecom operators needed more time to make technical changes to their mobile networks across India.
Currently, the changes are rolling out slowly by telecom operators across different telecom circles. When we tested here in Kerala – BSNL, Airtel and Idea network seems to have fully implemented the service.