All 11-digit mobile phone numbers in Vietnam will be changed to 10-digit numbers in 2018 (Photo ictnews.vn) Hanoi (VNA) - All 11-digit mobile phone numbers in Vietnam will bechanged to 10-digit numbers in 2018, said Pham Hong Hai, Deputy Minister ofInformation and Communications.
According to Nguyen Duc Trung, Director of theTelecommunications Authority under the Ministry of Information andCommunications, the change to fixed telephone area codes was completed nationwideon August 31.
After completing the change to fixed phone area codes, thereare some surplus codes such as 03, 04, 05, 07 and 08 which will be used for thegrowth in mobile phone subscriptions, the authority said.
Accordingly, all 11-digit numbers with prefixes ‘012’ ofVinaPhone and MobiFone, ‘016’ of Viettel, ‘018’ of Vietnamobile and ‘019’ ofGMobile will be converted into 10-digit ones.
The last seven numbers of the 11-digit mobile phone numberswill remain the same, except for the prefixes ‘0166’, ‘0188’, ‘0199’, whichwill be changed.
Existing 10-digit mobile phone numbers beginning with 090,091, 092, 093, 094, 099, 098, 097, 096 will not be affected.
To minimise the impact on users during the conversionprocess, the service provider must give at least 60 days notice about thechange to subscribers through mass media. They must also allow normal calls tothe old numbers as well as new ones for 60 days, it said.
In 2007, when the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications(now the Ministry of Information and Communications) officially issued 11-digitnumber for mobile networks, public expressed their concern that these numberswere often used for advertising and marketing, and usually abandoned after ashort period of time. Many people use the mobile phone numbers to spread spamand anonymous messages. As a result, many people were not happy with the use of11-digit SIM cards.
In the first half of this year, the ministry de-activated andrecalled more than 20 million unregistered SIM cards, most of them were11-digit ones in preparation for the digital reserve’s planning.-VNA
VNA
