We’re going to need larger hands. Photo: Coconuts Bangkok
Some of us may remember the long-long-ago days when people actually memorized phone numbers, but we’re pretty sure this is a bridge – or digit – too far.
With smartphones, tablets, land lines, DSL connections and a few fax machines still spewing toner, Thailand’s pool of phone numbers is rapidly depleting, and regulators are preparing for what they say is an inevitability: adding an 11th digit.
Doing so would be expensive on the back-end, as well as seriously annoying to consumers. To delay the change, the body charged with managing telecom will introduce two new rules next quarter designed to reduce “wasted” numbers.
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission is expected to halve the time before canceled numbers are recycled from 180 days to 90 days. Also, operators would be required to use 70 percent of the numbers in their pool before requesting more.
There are 70 million mobile subscribers in the kingdom, yet the NBTC has assigned 170 million numbers to operators such as AIS and DTAC. Millions of new numbers have been requested recently by providers for their 3G services: 14 million for Advanced Wireless Network Co., Ltd.; 8 million for DTAC and 10 million for True.
Although the ’09’ prefix was added not long ago, only 30 million such numbers remain. Approximately 200 million remain with the prefixes 06 and 01. NBTC wants to reserve 01 for future, 11-digit numbers, The Nation reported.
Related:
Can I Get Your Digits: Thais pay beaucoup baht for lucky No. 9
