Retaining the same number while changing the service provider may become a reality for Indian subscribers, as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India would issue a consultation paper on 'number portability' in a month's time.

"Currently we are having discussions with consultants and are studying number portability practice in different countries. We are going to come out with a consultation paper in a month's time," Rajendra Singh, advisor (mobile), Trai said, addressing a CII Telecom Summit 2004 in New Delhi.

Singh said while Trai understood that number portability was a consumer-friendly move, a deciding factor for the issue would be to see as to what extent such an arrangement could increase the cost to operators.

"These will be the issues when we come out with the consultation paper, and the inputs of the stakeholders would help us to take a decision," he said.

Singh, however, did not specify as to whether the number portability scheme would envisage only mobile numbers in the first phase.

He said Trai expected to issue a consultation paper on full unification across all telecom services, in a week.

Responding to Cellular Operator's Association of India's demand to allow direct intra-circle connectivity, Singh said these issues have been raised in the preliminary consultation paper for unified licence.

"We have got the response on the preliminary consultation paper and we are going to come out with a consultation paper on unified licencing in a week," he said.

On spectrum allocation, Trai said that it was working out specific guidelines to address issues such as efficient use of spectrum, and spectrum pricing.

"We will see if additional spectrum is necessary to be allocated to operators," he said.

On the issue of carrier access code, which would allow users to choose their own long distance operator, he said Trai had held discussions with access providers.

"After all it is the access providers who bill the customers...the industry opinion we have got is that it is not the right stage to implement carrier pre-selection," he said.

He said that Trai was convinced that the sector could not target high growth rates unless it focused on the rural rollout as well.

"We are convinced that unless rollout penetrates to rural areas, we cannot achieve the targeted growth rates by only focusing on urban subscribers," Singh said and proposed that instead of all operators rolling out individual networks in areas which were not financially viable, they could have an arrangement where one gives coverage and offers roaming to other operators.