Government will invite bids to appoint an agency for implementing the mobile number portability, which will allow a customer to change his service provider while retaining the number.

"Within a week, DoT will invite bids for selecting an agency for implementing MNP. We will select the agency within next three months," Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura said on Thursday, on the sidelines of a function by Assocham.

But the the consumer friendly facility is some time away from the mobile users as the service can start from next June only. "By June next year the MNP will be started in the metros and in the next six months time from then across the country," he said.

Earlier, the government had said that MNP can be started by the end of this year.

Wireless Number Portability is available in some parts of Africa, Asia, Australia, and in most of the European countries, including Britain; however, this relates to transferability between mobile phone lines only. Iceland, Canada, and the United States are the only three countries in the world that offer full number portability transfers between both fixed lines and mobile phone lines.

As per the MNP guidelines issued last month, the whole country would be divided into two MNP zones consisting of 11 service areas with two metros in each zone.

An MNP service provider (Agency) will be put in place for each zone, which will run the system by setting up a clearing house and a database of subscribers who would change their operator. MORE

The two service providers will be selected through a bidding process. Companies like Telcordia, Tekelec, Nortel and Syniverse may bid for the MNP service provider licence.

The government would distribute the licences for MNP and the eligible applicant should have an experience of operating successfully number portability solution for a mobile subscriber base of not less than 25 million in one or more countries for at least two years.

According to guidelines, the applicant company shall have a minimum paid up capital of Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million) on the date of application and a networth of Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).