A pilot project for mobile number portability (MNP) was launched Monday morning in north China's Tianjin Municipality and south China's Hainan Province, the Beijing Times reports.

The MNP project, ordered by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, allows subscribers to switch from one mobile phone service provider to another without changing their mobile phone numbers.

Under the project, cell phone owners in Tianjin and Hainan will be able to switch their service provider under certain circumstances from among China's top three telecommunication giants: China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, without the risk of losing touch with previous contacts. The policy in Tianjin varies slightly from that in Hainan.

Mobile phone users are to witness a new round of fierce competition among the service providers, since the barrier against free movement of subscribers is now taken away. All three companies have come up with unique tactics to keep their clients and attract new ones.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says it is likely to extend the practice nationwide sometime in the future, depending on the progress of the trial, according to Liu Jie, deputy director of the Ministry's telecommunication management bureau.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2010)