Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to appoint an operator for a database of ported numbers, two of the participants in the MNP (mobile number portability) project told Vedomosti.

The status will be given to the Central Research Institute of Communications (TsNIIS), subordinate to Rossvyaz. A representative of Rossvyaz told Vedomosti several days ago that he knew about the preliminary decision to appoint TsNIIS responsible for the base; at that time, the agency was waiting for the final documents regulating the appointment of TsNIIS.

The Prime Minister’s press secretary, Natalya Timakova, has not yet responded to Vedomosti’s question.

According to the law, the abolition of mobile slavery should take place on December 1, 2013. But operators have repeatedly said that it will be difficult to meet this deadline. One of the main obstacles they named was the appointment of a number database operator, which must store all the data of subscribers who have switched from one operator to another. This factor was mentioned, for example, in a recent letter from MTS to the adviser to the Minister of Communications Denis Sverdlov.

The work will be finished by December 1, promised the representative of the Ministry of Communications Maria Vinnik. On Tuesday, in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Minister of Communications Nikolay Nikiforov admitted that the number portability service could be implemented on December 1, 2013, "partially." According to him, all operators will be ready to let go of the subscriber by December 1, 2013, but not all of them will be ready to accept him: "This could become an interesting mechanism of market competition: if you've prepared, you can accept the subscriber."

The main competitor of the Central Research Institute of Information Systems in the fight for the status of the database operator was the Coordination Center of the National Internet Domain (CC). The operators are doing everything to prevent MNP from launching on December 1, says Andrey Kolesnikov, director of the CC. In his opinion, top managers of cellular companies, in particular MTS and VimpelCom, are personally interested in this: if the opportunity to port a number becomes available at the end of the year, then some operators will be required to show a negative trend in subscriber outflow in their annual reports, and this could cause their stock prices to collapse. As a result, this will affect the incentives for the management of these companies, Kolesnikov adds.

Dmitry Medvedev appoints operator of ported numbers database