Huawei and IDEA Launch India’s First Commercial Mobile Number Portability Solution

Shenzhen, China - Huawei, a leading telecom solutions provider, and IDEA, a leading GSM mobile service operator in India, today announced the successful launch of the first commercial MNP (mobile number portability) solution in India.

The whole project was completed one month ahead of schedule and during the entire process, Huawei migrated 470 sets of equipment, comprising up to 60,000 links, for IDEA without any service interruption. By adopting Huawei’s STP-based (signaling transfer point) MNP solution, IDEA is now able to provide number portability service to more than 63 million subscribers in 22 regions of the country. The solution optimizes the signaling network and supports an All-IP network transformation for IDEA.

Prior to the deployment of this solution, IDEA had been faced with several challenges: all of its network entities were connected with each other, the signaling network was complicated, and the routing solution was complex. IDEA deployed Huawei‘s STP-based MNP solution because it is well-positioned to address such challenges. The solution enables operators to simplify their network, increase operational efficiency, protect network investments, and accelerate time-to-market of new services.

“We are proud to be the first operator to complete all LRN (local routing number)-based migration activities in India. This milestone will allow our subscribers to enjoy number portability service in India,” said Anil Tandan, CTO of IDEA.“We appreciate Huawei’s expertise and its dedication to this project, which will help us to achieve further business success.”

“We are delighted to partner with IDEA, and our team worked hard to see that the project got completed ahead of schedule,”said A. Sethuraman, Vice President of Huawei India. “Our STP-based MNP solution can enable operators to simplify their signaling and routing by using a flexible configuration of the signaling message processing. The solution also protects operators’ investments.”

“We believe this milestone is just the beginning, and we will have more opportunities to cooperate with IDEA to address their network development strategy and create value.”

Huawei’s STP solution provides high-capacity TDM/IP protocol processing ability and high performance. It can support TDM/IP bearer as well as STP, SG, MNP/LNP, IP-STP applications in mobile networks. To date, Huawei’s STP product has been adopted by 114 operators in more than 60 countries, serving more than 1.32 billion subscribers worldwide.
About IDEA

IDEA Cellular is a publicly listed company; IDEA Cellular is a leading GSM mobile services operator in India with over 72 million subscribers, under brand IDEA. It is a pan India integrated GSM operator covering the entire telephony landscape of the country, and has NLD and ILD operations.

A frontrunner in introducing revolutionary tariff plans, IDEA Cellular has the distinction of offering the most customer friendly and competitive Pre Paid offerings, for the first time in India, in an increasingly segmented market. From basic voice & Short Message Service (SMS) services to high-end value added & GPRS services such as Blackberry, Datacard, Mobile TV, Games etc - IDEA is seen as an innovative, customer focused brand.

IDEA offers affordable and world-class mobile services to varied segments of mobile users. Be it high end users, or low-end, price sensitive consumers - IDEA’s tariff plans are designed to suit every pocket.

For more information, please refer to http://www.ideacellular.com.