Soon, your landline number will be 10 digits

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) recommended on Friday that landline numbers have 10 digits by December 2011. It has, however, dismissed a proposal to increase the digits in mobile phone numbers from 10 to 11. “The existing 10-digit numbering scheme for mobile phones should be continued to avoid inconvenience to customers,” recommended Trai.

The regulator says India should migrate to an integrated numbering scheme for fixed and mobile services by December 31, 2011.

“This would make available enough numbers to cater to the expansion of existing services and the introduction of new services for the next 30-40 years,” Trai said. “Integrated numbering will also facilitate the extension of number portability to fixed lines.”

Number portability is only for mobile phones as of now and implies that cellphone users don’t have to change their numbers even if they switch to another service provider.

It is learnt that by linking the numbering plan for landline and mobile users, Trai has ensured that number portability is also introduced for fixed phone subscribers.

Till the time the 10-digit number scheme for fixed lines is implemented, landline callers making intra-circle calls will have to add the prefix ‘0’ before dialling any mobile number. “This would enable exploitation of spare capacity available in the sub-levels of the existing short distance charging area codes to the extent of one billion numbers without affecting any telephone number or STD code,” Trai said.

The authority has also said service providers should not have more than three million unutilised numbers in a service area when they request for a new block of numbers. “This will prevent the accumulation of unutilised numbers by the service providers,” Trai said, adding that the allocation process must be automated.