Ten Digit Telephone Numbers To Begin In June

[sriracha john]

10-digit phone numbers due in June

All mobile users need to add an '8'

BANGKOK: -- Local telephone users will have one more digit to remember starting in June, according to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). The switch to 10 digits from nine will increase the potential number of telephone numbers from 90 million to 300 million, sufficient for expected growth over the next 30 years.

Mobile-phone users will have to add an '8' in the middle of the existing two-digit prefix, followed by the existing seven-digit number, in order to make a mobile-to-mobile call. For example, numbers starting with 01 and 09 will become 081 and 089 respectively.

Gen Choochart Promprasit, the NTC chairman, said the NTC board would discuss the new 10-digit system this week, with the result to be proposed to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for acknowledgement.

''We expect to start implementing the 10-digit system within three to four months, with the mobile phone system first'' he said.

TOT Plc has so far given out 87 million of the 90 million telephone numbers available nationally: 29 million to fixed-line operators, 22 million to Advanced Info Service, 12 million to DTAC, 6.5 million to True Move (formerly TA Orange) and one million to Thai Mobile.

Thai Mobile also has received 10 million numbers starting with 08 for future business. The company has been in existence for nearly four years but infighting between its two state shareholders, TOT and CAT Telecom, has stunted its development. It has only a few thousand paying customers.

The NTC recently allocated two million new numbers to DTAC and another one million to True Move.

Thailand currently has about 29 million mobile users, 96% of whom are customers of AIS, DTAC or True Move.

The decision to move to a 10-digit system is a response to complaints last year by operators that they were running short of numbers.

DTAC had claimed that of its 11.7 million numbers, more than 70% _ the minimum requirement for operators to request a new allocation _ had been allocated to its customer base of 8.7 million. True Move also claimed it was on the verge of running short.

The NTC responded by threatening to collect fees on unused numbers from operators in an attempt to prevent number hoarding.

Local cellular operators have hailed the new numbering plan, saying it was suited to a market where prepaid users account for more than 80% of all customers.

The problem companies face is that prepaid customers switch allegiance frequently, depending on which provider is offering the most attractive calling rates at a given time.

Operators typically reserve numbers that have gone unused for 60 or 90 days in case their defecting customers return.

Weerachai Patcharopartwong, assistant vice-president for business relations and development of AIS, said that changing to 10 digits would involve minimal cost for a software upgrade.

''There would have no effect on our operations since the new numbering system requires no change in customers' existing numbers,'' he said.

The company will allow customers to upgrade their SIM cards free of charge by inserting an '8' into all mobile numbers in the memory.

Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer of DTAC, also said his company would have no problem converting as long as the NTC gave it sufficient time to prepare.

--Bangkok Post 2006-02-14

[stumonster]

The problem companies face is that prepaid customers switch allegiance frequently, depending on which provider is offering the most attractive calling rates at a given time.

Operators typically reserve numbers that have gone unused for 60 or 90 days in case their defecting customers return.

How about legislating number portability - so if you change services you can keep your old number.

[p1p]

Brilliant. Maybe we will be told our new number before the change this time. Last time we were left receiving no calls for about a week, constantly reporting a fault, before some bright spark said "Oh, we changed your number!"

Thanks a bunch, mate.

[Foggy Bottom]

Gen Choochart Promprasit, the NTC chairman, said the NTC board would discuss the new 10-digit system this week, with the result to be proposed to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for acknowledgement.

''We expect to start implementing the 10-digit system within three to four months, with the mobile phone system first'' he said.

Weerachai Patcharopartwong, assistant vice-president for business relations and development of AIS, said that changing to 10 digits would involve minimal cost for a software upgrade.

''There would have no effect on our operations since the new numbering system requires no change in customers' existing numbers,'' he said.

The company will allow customers to upgrade their SIM cards free of charge by inserting an '8' into all mobile numbers in the memory.

Guess who'll pay for that software upgrade? - the customers

But ..... WOOHOO - a perfect excuse to finally shift off AIS - if the number change is compulsory, then why not upgrade to a cheaper and more "politically correct" service provider?

.

[slim]

Its no wonder they need new numbers when a mobile's existing number automatically expires if you dont buy a top-up card before the expiry date.

Surely they can come up with a better system than that.

Edited February 14, 2006 by slim

[Offroadlanna]

Weren't we told a few years back that the switch to phone numbers which included the city code would solve the number problem for many many years or so and that a swith to an additional digit would not be necessary.

[h90]

what a shock!!!!!!

I have a company, if that is happening here, and I don't get calls I can close my company forever...

Brilliant. Maybe we will be told our new number before the change this time. Last time we were left receiving no calls for about a week, constantly reporting a fault, before some bright spark said "Oh, we changed your number!"

Thanks a bunch, mate.

[spog]

oh sodding great. Now I have to dump 500 business cards with the 'wrong' mobile number.

on the plus side, I can finally get rid of my prepaid Orange number and switch to a better package....

Edited February 14, 2006 by spog

[marquess]

Great Avatar!. I think that my main concern, would be people calling me from abroad, and sending SMS's!

[Phil Conners]

Its no wonder they need new numbers when a mobile's existing number automatically expires if you dont buy a top-up card before the expiry date.

Surely if they did NOT expire the numbers there would be even fewer numbers around

Edited February 14, 2006 by madsere

[spog]

Great Avatar!. I think that my main concern, would be people calling me from abroad, and sending SMS's!

I am going to have a lot of conversations like this:

"okay, so to call me, you need to add a '66', then you need to drop the first '0'. Now you need to add an extra '8' after the '6'. No, not the first '6', the last '6'. No, that '6' is at the middle of my number, you need to add it after the 3rd '6'. That's right, the 3rd '6' after you added the 2 '6's "

[Orion76]

It's obvious they don't plan very far ahead...

It was only a few years ago that 02-123 4567 became 0-2123-4567 and that you couldn't call locally without the 02 city code in front of it "so they could have more numbers".

[Jai Yen Yen]

Ten digits?? But I'm a "Very Important Person". I want at least 12.

[rono]

its one way to keep the economy growing

the printing industry can look forward to print zilljoens of new business cards, company letters, invoices, receipts...

the telephone companies will also get a big cake with everybody calling everybody to inform his (hers) now numbers.

the loggers also win, more trees to cut to make additional paper.

the garbage collectors more work to collect all the extra paper

the recyclers more work

the big losers: the consumers and forests.

[bina]

crybabies:

we did it in israel last year:

first== we had 055, 054 067 etc.... with nine digits

then we had to add a 4 or a 2

so 052 became 0522 somewhere along the way but not always in the middle with no logic, so they published a little chart with all the old numbers and the changes

when u dialled you were shunted to the new number for six months after getting a recording saying the new number; after that, u had to dial the new number but most of us used the little chart to do the changeover... orange kindly changed all the old numbers in phone memory to the new numbers through computer

business cards: well, everyone just crossed out the old and added the new

for a while there were lots of crossed over calls, especially from overseas but it worked out in the end...

i guess this is different from the american system??? which i ahve yet to figure out??

[dr_Pat_Pong]

The problem companies face is that prepaid customers switch allegiance frequently, depending on which provider is offering the most attractive calling rates at a given time.

Operators typically reserve numbers that have gone unused for 60 or 90 days in case their defecting customers return.

How about legislating number portability - so if you change services you can keep your old number.

One can even do that in Australia

[madted]

The UK went through the same thing some years ago. I think they changed three times, and each time there would be enough numbers for the foreseeable future. There have been 11 digits for a while now, so maybe it's time for a change.

ted

[sabaijai]

Mobile-phone users will have to add an '8' in the middle of the existing two-digit prefix, followed by the existing seven-digit number, in order to make a mobile-to-mobile call. For example, numbers starting with 01 and 09 will become 081 and 089 respectively.

? There is no two-digit prefix now, area codes were abolished last time around. All numbers are now eight digits, with the single 0 prefix.

So what they mean to say is either that an '8' will be added to the 0 to make 08, as in:

08 5381 4578 (sample Chiang Mai number)

08 2576 1420 (sample Bangkok number)

or perhaps the 8 will append to the number body:

0 85381 4578 (sample Chiang Mai number)

0 82576 1420 (sample Bangkok number)

instead of the current

0 5381 4578

0 2576 1420

[Firefoxx]

Well, the current system is *supposed* to be thought of that way (0 prefix, 8 numbers), but people are still used to the "09/06/01 for mobiles, 02 for landlines, 03x for provinces" system, and still think of the system as being that way. Old habits die hard. They really should have done this conversion the last time they switched to the new system which required the "0" prefix.

[wimster]

Well.....hopefully they will have a service in place for a while (several months) in Thai AND English that clearly explains what to do (add the 8), so it will not cost us too much useless time, money and trees to get to who we need to call.

I remember this happened in the UK last time when the London changes took place.

[astral]

Well, the current system is *supposed* to be thought of that way (0 prefix, 8 numbers), but people are still used to the "09/06/01 for mobiles, 02 for landlines, 03x for provinces" system, and still think of the system as being that way. Old habits die hard. They really should have done this conversion the last time they switched to the new system which required the "0" prefix.

Of course they should have done the change last time.

They were told MANY times but did not want to listen.

Surely the change will give them 810 million possibilities?

9 X the existing number............

00 is already used for International and is not available.

I hope they realise the change will all have to happen in ONE day, otherwise chaos will ensue

I wait with bated breath and will not try calling Thailand that day.

Edited February 14, 2006 by astral

[chez]

Its no wonder they need new numbers when a mobile's existing number automatically expires if you dont buy a top-up card before the expiry date.

Surely they can come up with a better system than that.

sorry thailand i think i am resposible for this new number change. as every time i go to thailand i buy a new sim card/new number as i thought they automatically ran for either one month/three month, depending on the supplier, and were then useless i didn't realise that when i top up, that then extends the life of the card. am i studid or what, another dumb blonde. in my defense i have only every had contract mobiles in uk. never these pay as you go phones.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

The problem why they are always "running out of numbers" is that most Thais immediately switch providers as soon as another one cuts prices by 25 satang. And so it comes that many people have as much as 15 SIM cards sitting in a drawer, many of which are not yet expired, because obviously nobody cares to formally end a "contract", here it is just "stop using it".

I know this first hand because very seldom i can get hold of someone whom i hadn't spoken with for a couple of months - they always have new numbers.

However what's the big problem here? Simply add a "8" after the initial "0" to every number you have stored on your phone, done. It took me less than five minutes to do that when the area codes were made mandatory and i had more than 100 contacts in my phonebook.

And *maybe* this will end the confusion with new mobile numbers, starting with 038 - the guy in my motorbike shop has such a number, he can call me fine, but whenever i want to call him i get answer from an apartment building in Pattaya! Same number allocated obviously.

Regards.....

Thanh

[backflip]

In the US, they were running out of numbers, and there were a lot of new area codes. So, northern California which was "415", all of a sudden had an area code for San Francisco (415), another one for the "east bay area" (510), another for the noth bay area (905?), and on and on. Then, they were running out of area codes, and made calling "1+". To call another area code, you were forced to dial a "1", before the area code. The US is running out of numbers, not specifically because there are too many phones, but, due to the US FCC preventing the phone companies from have special prefixes for mobile numbers. These are the same geniuses that insisted that the GSM system in the US use different frquencies than the rest of the world. Dumber than a box of <deleted>' rocks.

[capt_canada42]

I'm told I don't have a right to add a new topic. But for 25+ years i have had the right to pick up people sorry rear ends here in this place, but don't think that entitles you to anything( which is okay with me) right other than to say this.

Okay so big deal about 10 or 12 or 20 digit phone numbers !!

But what is a big deal, is that no where on Thai TV on UBC can we view the Winter Olympics this really sucks as the these sporting events give alot of people alot of enjoyment.

Do I need to say more !

Does no one else out there care or miss this fact.

[Boon Mee]

That's right - where's the Beef?

10 digit numbers are all there is in N. America.

Thailand's just getting with the rest...

[Maestro]

sorry thailand i think i am resposible for this new number change. as every time i go to thailand i buy a new sim card/new number as i thought they automatically ran for either one month/three month, depending on the supplier, and were then useless i didn't realise that when i top up, that then extends the life of the card. am i studid or what, another dumb blonde.

In Thailand, with a pre-paid SIM there is a free number you can call to check your balance and how long that balance is still valid. However, even with a refill, the remaining usage time is always quite short.

In the UK, I use an O2 pre-paid and their manual says that the number will become invalid if no call is made from or to that SIM for 12 months. Same in Italy, I believe, with Vodafone pre-paid account.

In Switzerland, no information is given regarding limited validity of the number and I believe it remains valid indefinitely. I have one number that I did not use for over a year and it was still valid when I later made a call.

---------------

Maestro

[breconion]

Weren't we told a few years back that the switch to phone numbers which included the city code would solve the number problem for many many years or so and that a swith to an additional digit would not be necessary.

Just over a decade ago UK did the same thing.

London used to be 01 but not enough numbers so it was split into inner london and outter london 081 071. That would give enough numbers for years to come

I think about 2 - 3 years later it was then decided that we would add a 1 to all the national dial code after the leading zero ie 0181 0171 except some cities that would have a new national code.

There are several other examples of this lack of vision by nations.

This happened when the internet and mobile phones was growing.

It is a pity that we cannot see the future. But a greater pity that countries don't learn by others mistakes.

Don't worry I expect there will be other changes coming up. From the statement mobile numbers are first. Others will I am sure follow.

[britmaveric]

Make mental note add 8, granted I have a bad feeling a cock-up of some major proportion will occur.

[sriracha john]

That's right - where's the Beef?

10 digit numbers are all there is in N. America.

Thailand's just getting with the rest...

As N. America has roughly five times the population (and consequently the number of telephones) of Thailand, I suppose most people didn't think it would occur for at least another 20 years or so.

It's because of the antiquated policies here that they've run out of numbers years and years before necessary.