8 Digit Number change in Pakistan Number series
// May 6th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Call Pakistan, Pakistan Telecom Industry, pta
It is come to our attention, that the PTA has asked the Local Loops including PTCL to change the numbering plan from 7 digit to 8 Digit Numbers.
What this means is that all the numbers in Karachi and Lahore to start with will be changed, and after a few months, no one will be able to call on the old numbers.
We explored on www.pta.gov.pk for any news about this, but did not find anything so far on it.
The number change trial has already begun and people are getting calls with changed caller id and a prefix of 3 attached to this.
Reason:
We believe that the reason for doing this is that PTA claims that the numbers series are exhausted and as time will pass it will become difficult to manage the numbers with 7 digits , similar to Hong Kong and Singapore.
Alternate Solution:
Unlike Hong Kong and Singapore, which are small countries of 4 million or so people each, Pakistan is a vast big country of over 170 million people with only 8 million phone lines.
Unlike Hong Kong and Singapore, Pakistan has 99 area codes in the prefixes.
If the PTA and telecom companies feel and believe that more numbers are needed in future, a new series for these cities similar to the ones for New York, and London have been done can be introduced.
For example the new area code for Karachi can be 025
Negative Impact of this change:
If this change is taken place, their will be a huge economic loss to people of Pakistan in shape of
1. Stress: Most of the Pakistanis are non educated and when they will call these numbers that have been changed, and are not able to reach the person they are trying to reach, it will cause them stress and problems.
2. New Stationary: All the businesses will need to re print all the stationary that they have as the numbers change.
3. Yellow Pages will be useless: Over the years Pakistan has given away millions of yellow pages internationally, and when some one tries to call the old numbers listed in them, they will not be able to reach them, making financial losses to the economy.
4. Loss of Contacts, local and International: When the caller is trying to call old numbers, they wont be able to find the new numbers specially the outside the country callers, as they wont even know how to get the new number from the called party.
Of course there will be a recording for a limited period of time, explaining the change of number, but what happens 1 year from that time, are our old contacts not useful any more after the period of time ?
Conclusion:
If a less difficult and easier remedy is available to the authorities, We think that the easier way which is as good as any other way should be followed out and the number series should NOT be changed.
