India Running Out Of Phone Numbers
Bangalore: India could run out of phone numbers by next year. It is seen that all the phone number series presently in use, like the numbers beginning with 98 or 99, are rapidly getting used up with the subscriber base in the nation and is expected to be a billion and more by next year, reported Ishan Srivastava for TNN.
Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) was quoted saying to TOI "There might be a serious problem if a new series of numbers are not brought in by the middle of next year. We are theoretically reaching the limit of existing number sets with a subscriber base of one billion."
Mathews further said allocation of numbers to operators is done in batches, based on factors such as size of subscriber base and efficiency in utilizing existing number sets, among other things.
A batch system is used in order to avoid confusion since all kinds of phone numbers are flooding the market. Further, a particular range of numbers is given to an operator, normally with an identifier like the first two digits, like 98 or 99, which come to be associated with that operator.
Sandip Biswas, director at consultancy firm Deloitte said "None of these number ranges can be used to their full extent due to the way in which they are allotted. Only a certain portion of these numbers are used as phone numbers. This is called percentage of numbering system utilization and it hovers around 50 percent, meaning only around half or more of the potential numbers are used as phone numbers," as reported by TOI.
