A DTAC source said yesterday that the company had already made an unofficial request to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to check if the regulator could introduce the numbering policy earlier.

The company is concerned that a shortage of mobile numbers allocated to cellular operators could occur before the scheduled launch.

DTAC also expects a surge in customers, due its heavy call-tariff promotions and the ongoing campaign to urge Advanced Info Service (AIS) customers to switch to different networks as a means

of protesting the Shin-Temasek deal.

Activist groups have launched a campaign to boycott AIS products and its parent company, Shin Corp, to protest the January sell-off by the Shinawatra and Damapong families of Shin's controlling stake to Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

The NTC's original plan was to introduce the numbering policy early in the year, but it shifted the date to September.

It has only about 2.6 million phone numbers in reserve for landline or cellular operators.

After the NTC introduces the new numbering policy, all mobile numbers will have 10 digits beginning with 08 with mobile numbers increasing to about one billion. Landline numbers will remain at nine digits.

DTAC recently received 2 million more mobile numbers from the NTC, and they will be ready for distribution by the end of next month.

DTAC will deliver 800,000 phone numbers out of the 2 million granted by the NTC to its sales channels every month.

DTAC currently owns 12.8 million numbers, excluding an additional 2 million granted by the NTC, while AIS has 22.7 million. TA Orange owns 8 million, of which 2 million were recently granted by the NTC.

AIS and DTAC have around 16.5 million and more than 8 million subscribers, respectively.

An AIS source said the company had no plans to request more numbers at the moment.

He said some customers were leaving AIS in protest of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra but declined to say how many.

In January, AIS had almost 1.98 million post-paid customers, down almost 21,00 from the previous month, but its prepaid customers increased almost 125,00 to about 14.53 million.

In January of last year, its post-paid phone users had risen almost 13,000 to about 2.13 million, while prepaid users surged almost 121,000 to about 13.18 million. 

Telecom Reporters

The Nation