Consumer preferences towards mobile number portability- A study conducted in Amritsar and Jalandhar

After years of waiting, Mobile Number Portability has arrived in India. This move by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has expected to further intensify competition in the already crowded mobile services market. The main idea behind MNP is to increase the level of competition between service providers, rewarding service providers with the best customer service, network coverage, and service quality and which leads to customer service improvement. The present paper attempts to study the consumer preferences towards Mobile Number Portability in two districts of Punjab: Amritsar and Jalandhar. The sample of 133 respondents of different demographic profile categorized on the bases of age and occupation were taken. The finding of the study revealed that 30% of the respondents have availed MNP since its implementation in India. Structure matrix obtained from discriminate analysis shows that poor services, network congestions and automatic activation of services were found to be the main reason for subscriber switching behaviour. Subscribers who have not availed portability is mainly due to free mobile usage services such as SMS and free calling to their friends and families followed by better services and feasible tariff plans.