There will be a seven-day waiting period after the SIM swap or replacement for a mobile number to become eligible for porting, telecom regulator Trai said on Friday.

The step has been taken to curb fraud taking place by using mobile phone numbers.

"The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), on 14th March 2024, issued the Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Ninth Amendment) Regulations, 2024, which will come into force on July 1, 2024," the regulator said.

Earlier, there was a waiting period of 10 days in case a sim is swapped but the regulator has now reduced it to 7 days in the latest amendment.

Trai said that the amended regulations are aimed at curbing the porting of mobile numbers by way of fraudulent SIM swaps or replacement by unscrupulous elements.

"Through these amendment regulations, an additional criterion for the rejection of the request for allocation of a Unique Porting Code (UPC) has been introduced. Specifically, a UPC shall not be allocated if the request for the UPC has been made before the expiry of seven days from the date of the SIM swap! replacement," the regulator said.

Trai in an explanatory note said that few stakeholders were of the opinion that a wait period of 10 days after SIM swap or replacement is appropriate, some other stakeholders contended that a wait period of 10 days may inconvenience subscribers, especially in urgent porting situations, and therefore, a shorter wait period such as two-to-four days would be reasonable.

The regulator said it is of the view that to prevent fraudulent porting after SIM swap or replacement, the wait period should neither be too small that it falls short of the objective of curbing fraudulent porting, nor it should be too long to inconvenience the subscribers.

"Accordingly, the authority has decided to keep a waiting period of seven days after the SIM swap or replacement for a mobile number to become eligible for porting," the regulator said.

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