TRAI floats consultation paper for new numbering plan for fixed lines

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With a crunch of allotting new numbers hobbling the telecom industry, regulator TRAI is contemplating ways of providing additional numbers to foster growth in the sector. The regulator has come out with a consultation paper ‘Revision of National Numbering Plan’ to brainstorm about new number series.

In the recent years, there has been a veritable explosion in telecom connectivity with launching of 5G services, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications and internet of things (IoT) making the number crunch really acute.

“In recent years, availability of numbering resources is facing challenges due to the significant expansion of services and substantial increase in number of connections in both fixed line as well as in mobile segment. With a current total of 1199.3 million telephone subscribers and teledensity of 85.7% as of end of March 2024, there is a need to carefully examine utilisation of numbering resources and implement judicious policy decisions to ensure an adequate reservoir for the sustainable growth of telecommunication services,” the regulator wrote in the consultation paper.

While, on the one hand, TRAI is exploring new number series, it is also thinking of options to penalise telecom operators if they are found holding on to unutilised fixed line phone numbers.

“Should a financial disincentive be imposed upon TSPs for retaining X per cent or more of the allocated TIs remaining as unutilized beyond a certain timeframe? If yes, please specify the X per cent with suggested disincentive mechanism and retention timeframe with detailed justification?” TRAI wrote.

According to TRAI data, more than 6.28 crore fixed line numbers were allocated to telecom companies. Of these, about 3.54 crore, or 53.37%, are unutilised while 2.74 crore, or 43.63%, have been allotted to different users.

TRAI said that one of the options is that a uniform dialing pattern of 10 digit for both fixed line and mobile services can be though of for increasing number resources.

In case of fixed line local area code consists of 2-4 digits and subscriber number consists of 6-8 digits. But when it comes to cellphones all 10 numbers are telecom identifiers which act as veritable address of subscribers on the network.

“As is the case currently with mobile numbers, in order to ensure availability of TIs for fixed lines, should a 10-digit closed numbering scheme be made applicable to fixed lines also?” the regulator said.