Phone numbers to be 11-digit soon

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New Delhi: The country is soon going to shift to 11 digit telephone numbers from the current 10 digits in order to accommodate more users.

As first reported by FE on April 8, the government wants the migration to begin from January 2010, however the deadline looks unlikely. A department of telecom (DoT) official said since nothing had been finalised yet, hence no direction had been sent to the operators.

Currently, mobile phone numbers have 10 digits, starting with 9. Landline numbers vary depending on the circle and operator, with the longest being eight digits. Once both scale up to 11 digits in a passed manner, it would be impossible to distinguish whether an incoming call is being made from a fixed-line or wireless phone.

Two key changes are likely to be brought about in the new numbering system. The first will be integrating the dialling scheme for mobile and landline. That could mean common zero-prefaced appendages for STD calls. The second change could be migration to a circle-based numbering scheme for basic services on the lines of the first three digits on mobile phones.

Contributing to the looming shortage of numbers, according to industry regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has been hoarding by operators.

According to an internal DoT note, the National Numbering Plan 2003 is to be amended for migration to 11-digit numbering plan in mobile services by prefixing digit ‘9’.