Thailand To Use 10-digit Mobile Telephone System On September 1

[busgen]

oh my god..... this means printing millions and millions of namecards again..... and as for me, telling more than 100 people in other South-East-Asian countries about the change.... nasty

Too bad that I promised not to mention companies again. I know a real cheap and good print shop.

[busgen]

francois

We had similar change with landlines in Belgium a few years back.

Changes like that are bound to happen....probably unavoidable.

So yeah give Thailand a break

Indeed Francois, Holland had the same.......and if the article is true.......there will be no problem for the next 30 years.........!

About the addresses (not that it belongs in here): very hard to change but very easy to use:

1. if you need your address for visitors, than you need to be complete: name, housenumber, moo x, Soi Y, Village, compound or condominium A, Street name (and maybe another street name), Subdistrict, District, Zipcode and Province. Yes, to get a cramp somewhere!!

2. For the mail man: name, housenumber 111/23, Moo x, zipcode and province. Really; this is enough. The above mentioned combination of housenumber - moo - zipcode and province is unique and the mail is sorted on it.

[Lang]

Shanghai mobile phones have 11-digit phone numbers...

you mean China, with 1.5 billion people.

[geckocall]

Same thing was done in Hong Kong some years back. And in Laos more recently. And in Cambodia. Thailand telecoms regulators are simply responding to growth in subscribers. They are doing so properly according to international telecoms’ practices, not much different to how it's been done in so many other countries. ...Including in countries like UK. To issue longer nums for just new cell nums as one forum writer commented demonstrates a lack of knowledge by the writer, is rarely done anywhere in the world and would in fact create more confusion and issues with switching systems down the road. Phone numbering, just like www url names, are managed according to agreements within international organizations in which all countries telecom operators participate. …Keep in mind a countries’ phone network is part of an international network, and all the switching equipment has to be able to communicate to one another for calls go be successfully, efficiently routed, connected and billed. There are well established telecom numbering rules and practices that all countries follow. …Thailand is no exception.

Criticisms without knowledge or study about something, and to beat that old I feel taken advantage of dissatisfaction negativity drum, just makes the writer look foolish. Here is an idea to such writers: write it but don't post it, that will serve your internal needs of anxiety release, without causing you embarrassment nor wasting space on a public forum. Bantering complaints back and forth with your pals over some beers or a delicious local meal may also be a solution to vent your stress, that is the better forum for non-constructive complaining.

Thailand in fact has one of the better telecom infrastructures compared to many other countries in similar stage of economic development. ...And very reasonably priced. With that said however there are factors like monopolistic competition and political influences that negatively impact telecom services here. Thais are often very tolerant people of such things, thus “profiting” can take priority over Quality-Of-Service criteria in the management of telecoms services here.

[Backpack_thailand]

Not too bothered about the namecards really, as everyone is in the same position and would understand that they need to slot in an '8' to the number. Plus the fact that cards are dirt cheap here anyway...Result for the printers!

The pain-in-the-arse is that everyone will have to work through their stored numbers in the phone itself changing every single number...!!!

Ho-Hum. T.I.T

[BikeThailand]

You ought to think yourselves lucky. We've had 3 number range changes in the UK in the past 10 years

I agree, in the States we had to do it a long time ago. We used to be able to just dial 7 digits locally, and then we had to dial 10. Then, they went and changed the first 3 digits for almost everybody. It is part of growing and changes are necessary. The "0" in the beginning I find to be a bit odd, but it could be just about any number. There could be some significance to any call beginning with "0" being call from Thailand to Thailand, but that is just my thought for now.

I am not too worried about the change except that I would like to know when the change will start to take place and when it will be mandatory. I just added the "8" to my friend's number and tried it and it didn't work. There must be a grace period, otherwise MBK will raise the prices of name cards drastically and there will be a 4-week wait. I too am waiting to change my business cards, letterhead, banners, signs, posters, flyers, website, and so many other changes internationally as well.

If anyone wants to stop by Larry's Dive on Sukhumvit Soi 22 and discuss it in length over a few beers maybe we can make more sense of it. At least we can have fun trying!

Cheers,

Chris

[meemiathai]

The pain-in-the-arse is that everyone will have to work through their stored numbers in the phone itself changing every single number...!!!

Ho-Hum. T.I.T

And that's thailand's fault? Edited May 30, 2006 by meemiathai

[Backpack_thailand]

The pain-in-the-arse is that everyone will have to work through their stored numbers in the phone itself changing every single number...!!!

Ho-Hum. T.I.T

And that's thailand's fault?

Did I say that it was Thailand's fault...??? It was just an observation.

Jai Yen-Yen my friend...!!!

[Arkady]

I fondly remember the old bakelite phone sitting proudly on its own table in the hall at home in England. It had a metal dial in the middle with a three digit number on it which was pretty easy to remember. As other posters have commented the UK has had several annoying number changes since then, mostly in the last few years, as have other European countries.

I would just urge trying to keep to similar number groupings to keep them easy to remember. For mobiles 08-1234-5678 makes more sense than 0812-3456-78 or whatever they are going to come out with. But maybe memorisation of numbers is not a consideration because no one does it any more. A Thai family recently called my wife at all hours of the night in desparation because their daughter, one of my wife's friends, had disappeared. Later it turned out that she had suddenly gone on a trip to Pattaya with friends but couldn't call home to inform her family because her phone had broken done and she couldn't remember her own home number or any of the numbers of her family members!

[lomatopo]

But, what makes no sense at all is why inserting an "8" into all numbers gives the system any more numbers to work with. Unless the "8" will eventually change to another digit for future numbers, all this seems to be is a blatent marketing ploy to appeal to the "lucky 8" believers in Hong Kong and China.

The new "8" will not change for existing numbers, but new numbers could be issued with a 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 9 in place of the "8". I think you can see that gives quite a few additional telephone numbers to hand out? (Without restrictions, and admittedly there are quite a few, the current {essentially 8 digits with the zero trunk code} scheme would allow for a maximum of 100 million telephone number combinations {10 raised to the power of 8}, by adding another digit, you increase the total possible, maximum number of telephone number combinations to 1 billion (10 raised to the power of 9), or an additional 900 million telephone number combinations.) Clearly there are a lot of restrictions, hence the current figure is greatly reduced from 100 million, so the need for additional numbers.

The leading zero here is called a trunk code, and is used in many countries. It essentially tells the system that you are making a local call so the system knows how many digits will follow.

Presumably there will be at least a 30-day grace period whereby calls dialed without the "8" will be completed after a recording (first in Thai, then English just like the "800" recording currently in place) is played notifying the caller of the change. Calls dialed with the "8" would be automatically completed.

[Virgil]

I love this country, but explain to me I have a Telephone post on my property and the neighbor

acrossed the street has a phone running off of my pole,I have been trying to get a hard line phone

installed in my house for over 6 month now and was told they ran out of number and I may have to wait years for a phone,so I am connected with satillite to run my computer.

Does anyone else have the same problem not getting a phone hooked up?

It's probably got nothing to do with running out of numbers, they have simply run out of space to run another wire to your house.

Every phone in Thailand has it's own wire back to the exchange, they do not join in at the pole itself.

Surely if they run that extra wire to your house, some of the poles will fall over.

Actually, RJJ, if the landline network is digital then thousands of phone lines can run through the one single cable. It is only the old copper wire exchanges that have individual wires ... to the local hubs or "christmas trees" ... not to the exchange.

[Greer]

It is the international phone system standard in most countries I have visited to have a "0" and an area code number in front for Subscriber Trunk Dialling, which usually includes mobiles - recently it seems to have become necessary to make people dial the 0 on all numbers to help avoid clashes with local numbers within the local exchange zone (I suspect this is the case anyway).

The "00" code is not internationally recognised as a pre-cursor to an international call. In Australia the code (or one of them anyway) is "0011", while in other countries it may be "100", "001", or various other numbers. The use of a "+" symbol on a mobile simply tells the local switching system to insert whatever the local international access code is to allow an international call, so in the UK, the "+" equates to "00" while in Australia the "+" equates to "0011" - in modern digital systems it may directly recognise the "+" as meaning the following numbers are an international call without inserting the "001" or whatever.

The quantity of actual numbers available will increase of course, but I tend to agree with an earlier poster who mentioned the figures for the UK having a similar population, but with 11 digits for mobiles - I think the move should immediately be made to an 11 digit number to save having to go through it all again in the nexty few years. The rate of take-up of mobile phones is huge, and is aided not a little by the difficulty of getting a landline due to the aforementioned problems with number and cable availability.

If the 08 is reserved for mobiles and the other digits are kept for landline system expansion, then you have only 99,999,999 mobile numbers available. Take out the usual numbers that may be avoided to reduce erroneous dialling (such as 00 000 000 and 11 111 111 or 22 222 222 etc) and this reduces again.

As this system currently expands outside the codes for the various operators, that again reduces the likely quantity of numbers available since the third and maybe the fourth digit may be used as a provider code so 08 1 may be AIS, while 08 7 or whatever may be DTAC...see what I mean?

The "just-enough" thinking, when it comes to future planning for expansion in this market sector may prove costly in the not-too-distant future.

I don't see it lasting anywhere near 30 years at the rate we buy mobiles and numbers for them.

Regarding the thousands of phones in a single wire - this is true because they are "multiplexed" onto the cable - but you have to have a demultiplexer located relatively locally (a small local "exchange" hub point) and from there you still have to have individual cabling to the subscribers property - unless they have "poletop demux" units now - but I have never heard of such a thing.

If anyone knows, seriously, I would be interested to hear of it...

Edited May 30, 2006 by Greer

[britmaveric]

what really sucks is, i have to update about 200 phone numbers in my mobile phone....

how repetitive and excruciating it will be... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Use your computer and it will be painless, ie update via a usb sim card reader.

[mmaggi]

What about calls from abroad, do they dial the leading zero?

I am guessing they would not.

[hkt83100]

The pain-in-the-arse is that everyone will have to work through their stored numbers in the phone itself changing every single number...!!!

Ho-Hum. T.I.T

Export the list to your PC, load in any reasonable editor search&replace ' 0' by ' 08' or whatever appropriate, save and play back to the mobile. Should not take longer than 5 minutes. Maybe several trips through the file like ' 01' -> ' 081' etc...

P.S.: Sorry, if someone else suggested this solution already.

Edited June 13, 2006 by hkt83100

[britmaveric]

The pain-in-the-arse is that everyone will have to work through their stored numbers in the phone itself changing every single number...!!!

Ho-Hum. T.I.T

Export the list to your PC, load in any reasonable editor search&replace ' 0' by ' 08' or whatever appropriate, save and play back to the mobile. Should not take longer than 5 minutes.

P.S.: Sorry, if someone else suggested this solution already.

Agreed, updating contacts are least of our worries - hoping thai telecom don't muck it up is the worrisome bit.

[george]

Update:

All mobile phones in Thailand to have 10-digit numbers in September

BANGKOK: -- Holders of all mobile phones in Thailand will have their numbers adjusted to become 10-digit ones in September, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) announced here on Friday.

An NTC expert, Mr. Direk Charoenphol, told TNA that NTC had ordered all service providers to turn all domestic mobile phones, both previously and newly registered, to be the 10-digit phones from September 1, 2006.

"Under the plan, which will result in sufficient numbers to be offered to increasing mobile phone holders over the next 30 years, the number '8' will be added after '0' of each number," he noted.

"This means that the existing number, '09-1234567', for example, will become '089-1234567' then", he revealed.

All local moblie phone service providers will launch the 10-digit phone service on a trial basis in July.

All of them will have to bear all investment and incurring costs in launching the new service, including those on public relations of the initiative, according to the NTC expert.

"NTC is assessing impacts caused by the change on the Thai economy, most of them are belived to be positive," he said.

The kingdom's basis phone services will remain at 9-digit ones as long as there will be no problem of insufficient numbers to be offered to new users.

It is projected that mobile phone holders in Thailand will increase to around 70 per cent of the country's total population over the next 30 years.

--TNA 2006-06-17

[tjo o tjim]

unless they have "poletop demux" units now - but I have never heard of such a thing.

If anyone knows, seriously, I would be interested to hear of it...

I have seen pole-mount SLICs, but not in Thailand. Pedestal SLICs are common elsewhere. The SLICs can have different kinds of functionality such as a fiber-to-copper gateway, DSLAMs, etc.

[rainman]

how will adding the "8" extend the range of numbers available?

say '09-1234567', becomes '089-1234567'. won't that just add another digit into the numbers but not really extend the range? after the '8' the numbers are still limited to the same as before. why not just extend it to number starting with 10-...., 11-...., 12-...., etc?

[joe beets]

All existing numbers will have "8" added to them, according to this proposal.

Once all those numbers have been exhausted, they can choose another value for the new digit, say "7", and start over.

In theory, this could multiply the available number pool by a factor of 10.

At least I hope that's what they were thinking.

jb

[ovenman]

The kingdom's basis phone services will remain at 9-digit ones as long as there will be no problem of insufficient numbers to be offered to new users.

I assume that means landlines. I don't know why the powers-that-be don't just add a digit to these numbers as well and make everything remain equal.

[Jai Dee]

Cellphones to get 10 digits in Sept

From September, mobile phone users will have one more number to remember as the country’s telecommunications system switches from nine to ten digit dialing, said the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

Subscribers with mobile accounts will have to add an ‘8’ after their number’s first digit. For example, a phone number with an 04 prefix will change to 084.

The decision comes after months of discussion and complaints by mobile operators that they are running out of phone numbers.

It also comes as the country’s mobile industry is booming.

The industry saw 1.87 million new subscriptions during the first three months of the year, bringing total subscriptions in the Kingdom to 32.4 million, a penetration rate of 51 percent.

Some operators have estimated that there will be an additional five million subscribers by the end of this year.

Although the new dialing system will be in place by September, Direk Charoenphol from the NTC said mobile operators will begin moving to ten digits on a trial basis as early as next month.

Adding another digit will increase the number of available phone numbers to 300 million, which the NTC expects will be sufficient for the next 30 years.

The NTC will also begin investigating whether mobile operators are using existing phone numbers efficiently.

It plans to pressure the industry to release allocated phone numbers which have never been used.

Direk said there are thousands of prepaid mobile numbers assigned to different service providers that have yet to be assigned to subscribers.

There are also thousands of numbers which have been assigned but have not been used for months, he said.

“The NTC will improve the regulations on maintenance charges paid by operators for unused numbers to prevent them from hoarding numbers,” said Direk.

Mobile operators count prepaid phone numbers as subscribers until they remain unused for more than 90 days, a practice which the NTC contends results in a glut of unused phone numbers which could be returned to the system.

Operators say the allocation system is necessary in a mobile market where about ten percent of mobile phone users have more than one phone number and switch between service operators depending on available rates.

The NTC expects land line numbers to be sufficient in the short term but said they would go the way of mobile numbers in a few years’ time.

“In the next five to ten years land lines will have 10 digits as well,” Direk said.

Source: ThaiDay - 19 June 2006

[chanchao]

> UK - 55M people with good landline infrastructure is 11 digits.

> Thailand 63M people with poor landline infrastructure = 10 digits.

10 digits is a lot more than 63 million.

[Crossy]

Well, it looks like the update is not going to be automatic

According to this article http://www.bangkokpost.com/Business/24Jul2006_biz03.php we are all going to have to visit the shop to have our SIM cards updated.

Grrrrr.

[Scott]

Just another headache.

[John K]

Back in the states they did a similar thing by adding a new area code. For 6 months both worked to give companies time to update their documents. However as it would be the part of the state with the highest income kept the original area code, (politics I think). I wonder if there will be such a period of time here?

[Jai Dee]

Or HR department released the following bulletin today:

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has announced that effects from 1st September 2006; all mobile phone numbers will have 10 digits. The first 0 will be replaced with 08 and then the original number, as follows:

0 1xxx xxxx To 08 1xxx xxxx

0 3xxx xxxx 08 3xxx xxxx

0 4xxx xxxx 08 4xxx xxxx

0 5xxx xxxx 08 5xxx xxxx

0 6xxx xxxx 08 6xxx xxxx

0 7xxx xxxx 08 7xxx xxxx

0 9xxx xxxx 08 9xxx xxxx

For example: mobile No. (0) 1835 9232 = (08) 1835 9232, or (0) 6322 0130 = (08) 6322 0130

For international call: +66 (0) 1835 9232 = +66 8 1835 9232, or +66 (0) 6322 0130 = +66 8 6322 0130

Link to NTC webpage here.

[sriracha john]

tick-tock, tick-tock... September 1st is a scant 3 weeks away:

AIS prepares to use new numbering system

Aug 10, 2006

AIS, Thailand’s largest mobile operator, announced that it was ready to expand its service to integrate 10-digit dialing.

Thailand’s National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) earlier ordered mobile phone companies to upgrade their customers' SIM cards to prepare for the new system within the next three months.

The new system will increase the potential number of telephone numbers from 90 million to 300 million, to meet growth over the next 30 years.

AIS subscribers, numbering about 17 million, can upgrade or replace their SIM cards at any of 600 of the company's branches across the country, starting next month until November, AIS said.

AIS is also providing mobile caravans to help customers in remote areas with the changeover.

If users are not able to switch to the new system by the deadline, they will not receive incoming calls.

AIS customers who use Symbian phones can edit their mobile numbers online by visiting the company's Web site and downloading the program.

New subscribers are automatically being put on the 10-digit system from next month with a new type of SIM card.

- NewsEdge

[sriracha john]

apparently the system is in place now:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?s=...st&p=854482

otherwise, it's a very soon 12 days away for people to comply...