TRAI’s New Tips for SIM Swap After Porting Come Into Impact At present

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) introduced a number of new pointers in regards to the alternative of misplaced, broken or stolen SIM playing cards on March 14. The principles come into impact beginning at this time (July 1). As per the rules, cell phone customers should now watch for a specified time frame earlier than they are going to be allowed to modify community suppliers. As per the regulator, this transfer is claimed to be geared toward curbing fraudulent SIM replacements and switching telecom suppliers.

New TRAI pointers

As per the round issued by TRAI, customers will now have to attend seven days after they’ve changed stolen, broken or misplaced SIM playing cards to modify community suppliers. These new guidelines come into impact at this time following the Ninth Modification of the Cellular Quantity Portability (MNP) Rules, launched in 2009. MNP rules have been amended eight instances prior to now.

Notably, MNP rules supply a approach for customers to modify between telecom service suppliers in India whereas retaining their distinctive cellular numbers. In line with TRAI, its new guidelines are geared toward combating fraudulent SIM swaps or replacements performed by nefarious actors.

TRAI defines SIM swap as a strategy of “acquisition of a brand new SIM card rather than a misplaced or non-working SIM card by the present subscriber”. The regulator permits cell phone customers to acquire a brand new SIM card if the previous one is misplaced, stolen or broken. As per the rules, telecom suppliers will now be prohibited from issuing a novel porting code (UPC) to customers within the preliminary seven days following the alternative or swap of the SIM. For this, a brand new standards for rejection of the UPC issuance has been launched. To situation a UNP, cellular service suppliers should examine for the next situations:

1. The cellular quantity has been ported earlier. In that case, a interval of 90 days has not elapsed because the final date of porting.
2. One other porting request from the identical cellular quantity is in course of.
3. A UPC has already been issued to the cellular quantity and hasn’t expired.

If any of the aforementioned situations are legitimate, the community supplier might be forbidden from producing a UPC and must inform the subscriber of the rationale through an SMS, as per TRAI.

The draft of those guidelines was finalised after a suggestion by the Division of Telecommunications (DoT), in keeping with TRAI. Conferences have been additionally held with stakeholders together with due evaluation, following which the modification was introduced.