Bad news for grandma: Mobile numbers may soon be 11 digit

Posted on 02-12-2009

If a proposal by DoT goes through, we may all see an additional digit added to our mobile numbers.

While it was expected that India wouldn't reach 500 million subscribers till 2030, it seems to have beat that deadline by a good margin of 21 years, proving once and for all that things get done faster when the citizens get to task.

As is obvious, a 10 digit numbering scheme can only support only a limited number of phone number combinations, and while a plan was in place to have the transition by 2030, it seems that we are bound to run short much sooner than that.

The proposal would have all current cell phone numbers appended with a '9' instantly granting the country ten times as many phone numbers, and hopefully solving the problem for another few decades, or till foetuses decide to have their own dual-sim mobile phones, whichever is sooner.

While 500 million subscribers are active, as many as 800 million might have already been used up, as people often change service providers and numbers, and operators often discontinue operating such numbers. Interestingly it seems that 20% of allotted numbers are never even used.

While the DoT seems to be pushing to have this change ready by January 2010, operators claim that they have received no intimation of the same, and are only aware of the long standing proposal. Additionally, they say that this change will require extensive changes to their software and hardware, and are not something which can be done in such a short period.

Why not get 20 digit phone numbers and save us the trouble for another couple centuries? Like this brilliant idea which might ensure we never face a problem like Y2K or Y10K ever.