World’s largest Mobile Number Portability project launch delayed again.

The Indian Mobile Number Portability project is the world’s largest since mobile number portability was introduced into the US and is likely to be the largest for some time, as China is moving slowly.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) awarded Mobile Number Portability (MNP) contracts to US Based Telcordia and Syniverse in March 2009. MNP was meant to launch in August initially, which was later delayed to September and now the TRAI has revealed that it will be a phased launch – Main Metropolitan & Key Areas on December 31 and Rest of India on March 20, 2010.

“It was a little too aggressive a schedule” commented Tony Holcombe, CEO of Syniverse. Similar delays happened with mobile number portability projects in other countries, including the US and Singapore, he added.

Each of the two companies will run a database covering users in half the country: Syniverse handles operators in the north and west and Telcordia will take the south and east. The two databases will be connected.

According to the regulator, India has over 456 Million customers at the end of Aug 2009.