The government said on Monday that entry of mobile number portability (MNP) will be further delayed by two months from March 31, 2010 to May due to security concerns.

“Due to security issues, MNP has been delayed by two months,” said Union Communications Minister, A Raja.

Security agencies in the government are concerned about involvement of US-based Telcordia as one of the MNP service providers. Even the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has deferred its clearance for the company’s proposal.

With this delay, the fate of MNP appears to be heading the 3G way with postponing of dates becoming a trend.

The earlier date of December 31, 2009 was delayed because PSUs BSNL and MTNL were not technically prepared for the MNP ecosystem. Following this the government had set March 31, 2010 as the new deadline. There were still doubts if the new deadline will be met as BSNL had received security clearance from government agencies only recently.