After Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India has now announced that it will discontinue mobile services for prepaid customers if the connection remains inactive for more than 60 days.
The company said that this has been implemented because DoT's stringent guideline for allocation of new number series based on active subscribers has created acute shortage of numbers.
New customers will be intimated of the deactivation process in their starter kits while existing customers will be informed via SMS and outbound calls wherever possible. This information is also updated on Vodafone Web site.
In November, Bharti Airtel had informed TRAI that it will start disconnecting subscribers who do not use their phones for more than 60 days together.
The biggest impact of this move will be on subscribers who had taken lifetime validity pre-paid cards as they are currently required to do a minimum recharge only once in six months. But now they will have to recharge their connection every two months or face deactivation. It will also impact users who have multiple SIMs as they have been found to use the second and third connections very sparingly.
The DoT recently decided to give fresh numbers to operators based on the active subscribers. According to the TRAI, only 70 per cent of the reported numbers are active.
The current numbering plan was designed to accommodate only 750 million subscribers hence the DoT had brought in the new allocation system.