11 Digit Mobile Phone Numbers in India
Iam sure its hard to memorize all the 10-Digit mobile phone numbers of your friends which is the reason some of you would be maintaining some mini pocket dairies, digital diaries or some cool mobile phones like iphone where you can save huge amount of contact information, but guess what the government thinks that the 10-Digit mobile phone slots would be full by the next year and there would be a need for 11 Digits numbers soon.
Currently there is a 375.74 million subscribers base in India which includes all GSM, CDMA & WLL subscribers and to reach the maximum limit of 450 million it wont take more than a years time which is the reason its required for the Department of Telecom to get ready for 11 digit numbering system. The subscribers are being added at around 10 million numbers every month and the DOT’s numbering plan which was made in 2003 seems to be out of calculations with the huge growth of telecom industry in the current decade.
There are chances that ‘9′ would be added in the prefix of all the mobile phone numbers once this is implemented. Though i feel there are some ways to come out of this situation making the consumer happy which is by making all the deleted, cancelled numbers available which is atleast 20% of the total base and increasing every month and also the telecom authority should automatically redirect or prefix ‘9′ in the numbers whenever dialed making the 11 digit system a backend change and no problem for the consumers to edit all their contacts.
Number portability could also help in a great way to overcome this problem.
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I think cancelled and/or deleted number would be more than 20%…so that could have solved this problem for another couple of years. Lets see what happens…everything is in the laps of future.
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MNP should solve the problem atleast for some years. But, they won’t do it early enough.
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Adding up prefix numbers is not a new procedure for telecommunication departments. As we are the users we need to accommodate whatever actions they are going to take. No other way. The history says.
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Before causing anymore blunder in the Indian Telecom industry, TRAI should realize that they are here for our convenience not to cause disturbances. Stop doing experiments. It’s a matter of 350 million users. An estimated 20 million man/month will be collectively required to clear up this mess. Billions of cards and brochures have to be reprinted. Big numbers will be ugly and confusing. Lastly, the telecom companies had raised more than 12 thousand crores by selling special numbers to the corporates, professionals and individuals. TRAI should arrange to refund the full amount with interest because while issuing the numbers people were promised of 30 years of usage.
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I had taken a fancy number last year. Paid as much as Rs.35,000. They told me this number would be retained for another 20 years. Now what? TRAI should refund my money with interest or I’ll have to consider legal options.
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MNP would be implemented soon in metros (dec 09) & then in other cities – so thats good news for now.
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