The telecom department of India has asked all the telecom companies to make necessary arrangements by 1st January to implement a new system in which landline users will need to prefix ‘0’ when they are calling any mobile number in the country.
The development comes after the Department of Telecom (DoT) has accepted the proposal from sector regulator TRAI. This is being done to ensure adequate numbering resources for fixed-line and mobile services.
TRAI, when recommended this change in May this year, stated that the introduction of a dialing prefix for a particular type of call is not akin to increasing the number of digits in the telephone number.
As per the report coming from TRAI, this new change in the dialing pattern will generate 2,544 million additional numbering resources for mobile services to cater to future requirements.
Interestingly, this used to be the case earlier where landline users needed to add ‘0’ prefix when calling mobile numbers. However, in the year 2015, the calling system was simplified, removing the need to add a ‘0’ prefix before calling a mobile number.
