Is the recent shortage of numbers
for telecom subscribers in India the result of the burgeoning telecom
subscribers, as the market adds 10 mn every month? No. Actually this is the
result of shortsightedness of the telecom policy makers and operators of the
country. The cracks in the policy have started opening up as the Indian telecom
market continues to explode, and there seems to be no stopping.
The ten number series has the capacity to manage more than
999 crore subscribers, which is much higher than the total population in India.
Indian population will never touch such a figure, even in ages. So what went
wrong, and why we are facing such a problem?
"While deciding on the allocation of number, the authorities
never thought that India would have such a huge telecom growth, that too in the
near future. If the allocation was done properly we would have never come across
such a situation," says a senior official of a leading telecom operator pleading
anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to media.
The country is said to be on the verge of running out of
mobile numbers within the next two years time. The Trai and the industry are
exploring options to sort out the issues. One of them was to make the mobile
number as eleven digits from the present ten.
However, the operators will take at least six months to have
a network compatible to the eleven digit number.
The software of all the switches deployed across the state
have to be upgraded. Even the old one has to be replaced completely with the
new. One switch caters to a 6 lakh subscriber base on an average. One can
imagine the total number of switches the telecom operators have to upgrade in
the country to allocate subscribers on an eleven digit number. Industry insiders
say that the entire operation will take not less than six months and another few
months; to run trails.
"The numbers were not used judiciously, otherwise we would
have never faced such a problem today. The number series was allocated and used
as and when the demand had arisen from different stakeholders, instead there
should have been a proper planning based on requirements, keeping in mind the
future growth as well. For example, there are a lot of unused numbers in the
number series being used for wireline today. In addition to that, it is seen
that re-use of discontinued numbers is very seldom," says KC Jangir, DGM,
Network Planning, TTML.
Today, the mobile subscribe base in India is more than 500 mn.
However, the country is said to have consumed much more numbers than the actual
existing subscriber base. Industry estimates that over a period of time, around
200 mn numbers were wasted by the subscribers due to the churn rate.
These numbers can not be permanently stopped or allocated to
a new subscriber, thanks to the lifetime validity schemes run by the service
providers. A subscriber-who even has stopped using the services for a long
time-can drag a service provider to court for stopping his service. Regulators
and the operators have to find a solution for the problem, otherwise it will
continue to aggravate.
Trai is now planning an alternate solution where it will
retain the current ten digit format, but open up digits two to nine for the
mobile numbers. Currently only digits nine and eight are open for mobile
numbers.
"The problem could be resolved if the authorities could lift
all their restrictions on the usage of numbers for mobile phones. Except zero
and one-as it is used for STD-ISD calls and emergency calls respectively-rest of
them could be used. There are no technical issues involved in that as well,"
says Satyen N Gupta, chief regulatory advisor and director, government affairs,
India & SAARC, BT Global Services.
However, the biggest challenge would be to change the landine
number to ten digits. The foremost need is to find a unique solution to change
the landline number, otherwise it would spread chaos, as all the enterprises
still use landline for business processes while mobile remains a tool for
personal usage.
Akhilesh Shukla
akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in
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