Viewing the rapid growth in cell phone users, the government is considering to modify the 10-digit mobile numbering system to 11-digit. The Department of Telecom (DoT) has analyzed that its 30-year master plan of 10-digit number system would be inadequate soon, and hence a need to swell the number base.
Now, mobile business in India is growing much faster than expected rate and this trend is likely to continue with the same pace as mobile operators are getting into the rural and remote areas of India along with new technologies, including the 3G service.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has estimated that at the end of February 2009, India's total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & WLL-F) base was 375.74 million and as many as 15-million customers are subscribing new connections every month.
According to DoT, with such an accelerating growth, the 10-digit quota will be over in 10-15 months.
To avoid exercise in finding the number options, the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) of DoT is mulling to introduced new National Number Planning (NNP) in quantum of 11-digit.
Earlier, TEC of DoT had introduced the 10-digit NNP in 2003, citing that when subscriber base in an short distance charging area (SDCA) or a circle in common parlance would expand beyond 4 crore, it would need a changeover from 10-digit to 11-digit. But it was not expected in the next 30-year, as DoT had claimed in 2003. So, it had introduced a 30-yr master NNP in 2003.
To make uniformity in number system transforming from 10 to 11 digits that is essential according to international norms, there are chances of either prefixing a number before the last five digits or suffixing it at the end of the current number.
At present, China and United Kingdom has 11-digit national number system.
The transition from 10 to 11-digit number system can take a maximum span of one month, as changes are only needed in the software of server and not the hardware of mobile.
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