Add '0' before dialling a mobile phone number from your landline starting January 1, says DoT
The department of telecommunications (DoT) has made it mandatory to prefix 0 before dialling any mobile number from your landline January 1 onwards. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) had in May recommended a '0' prefix for all such calls to create sufficient numbering space for telecom service providers.
A circular posted on DoT’s website dated November 20 said that it may inform landline customers about this change.
“Fixed-to-mobile calls shall be dialled with prefix ‘0’. Suitable announcement may be fed in the fixed line switches to apprise the fixed line subscribers about the requirement of dialling the prefix ‘0’ for all fixed-to-mobile calls,” it said. “All the fixed line subscribers should be provided with `0’ dialling facility, that is, STD dialling facility."
This announcement should be played whenever a subscriber dials a fixed-to-mobile call without prefixing '0', it said.
DoT said that time till January 1 is allowed to all the telecom service providers to implement this new system. "Compliance of the same may be intimated," DoT said.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in May this year had recommended dialling prefix '0' for a call from fixed line number to mobile number.
The regulator had, however, stated that the introduction of a dialling prefix for a particular type of call is not akin to increasing the number of digits in the telephone number.
Trai had then also stated that this change in dialling pattern will generate 2,544 million additional numbering resources for mobile services to cater to the future requirements.
