NEW DELHI, Nov 26: All calls from fixed landlines to mobiles will have to be dialed with prefix ‘0’ from January 15, 2021, a circular issued by the department of telecommunications on Thursday said.
It said the decision had been taken as per the recommendations of TRAI on “Ensuring Adequate Numbering Resources for Fixed Line and Mobile Services” to generate enough numbering resources for future use. There will be no change in dialing plan from fixed to fixed, mobile to fixed and mobile to mobile calls.
According to an estimate, the new system of prefix ‘0’ was expected to generate 2539 million numbering series for future use. With the freeing up of sufficient numbering resources, more number of connections can be added in future which will be beneficial to the mobile customers at large.
The circular said all fixed line subscribers would be provided with ‘0’ dialing facility from that date and Suitable announcement would be made whenever a subscriber tried to dial a fixed to mobile call without prefixing ‘0’.
(Manas Dasgupta)
