April 11, 2016: Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) is set to change all landline numbers across the country as the mobile and SMS system, as well as remodel the services to make them at par with the international standards.
NTA spokesperson Min Prasad Aryal informed that the study is ongoing to revamp landline telephone numbers into the model of mobile and SMS systems.
Read: How to send free SMS in Ntc, Ncell? >>
Aryal further informed that some changes are also in the offing in the mobile and SMS services before changes are introduced in the landline numbers. But this change will not affect the mobile numbers of service users. “Only codes of the mobile and SMS system will be changed, not the numbers,” Aryal said.
Read about Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Nepal.
10 digit numbering plan
A consultation paper submitted to NTA has also suggested using 10 digital numbers for a landline number, to have a uniformity among all numbers in Nepal be it Mobile or Fixed or LMPS or WLL or RTS (Rural Telecommunica services). As they felt the 10 digit numbering plan is sufficient to cater to the mobile number for a mobile operator, they did not suggest increasing the digits. With the current plan, an operator can issue one crore mobile number with a single code. If there are two codes, then it can go up to 2 crores which seems sufficient.
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Though the uniformity was planned for all the numbers, some sort of identification code should have been used for Landline, and Mobile. But the demerit of such 10 digit numbers is people could mistakenly dial the wrong number.
Update: It’s 2020, but still the 10 digit numbering plan is not yet implemented. It is also due to the fact that craze for landline numbers have abated and declining in numbers.
