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Joined: Dec 2003
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Mobile Phone Numbers to Get Extra Digit
Mohammed Alkhereiji, Arab News
JEDDAH, 17 March 2004 ? The Saudi Telecom Company (STC) will issue new nine-digit numbers for mobile phone subscribers instead of the current eight at the end of April.
According to Al-Madinah newspaper, the change will give STC the capacity to host 100 million mobile phone numbers instead of the current 10 million.
The new numbers will start with 050 and will cover all subscribers on April 20, by which time STC hopes to have completed testing the system.
Customers will have three months to alter their numbers and will receive a text message informing them of their new number to avoid confusion. The old numbers will become obsolete on July 21.
This move comes in preparation for the opening of the telecommunications industry to other phone companies, STC said, and became necessary because of the fast growth of cell phone subscribers and the expected network expansion.
The change would cause some inconvenience for anybody having to update a database, says Tareq Abdul Aziz, a computer specialist. ?In other telecom markets the grace period is more accommodating,? he added.
But Ismail Bana, a media consultant, was unfazed. ?Although I have to update my business contact numbers, this change is a common occurrence in most developed telecommunications systems. It?s a sign of progress; you?ll have less congestion of the mobile network, which is something everybody has suffered during particular times of the year,? he said.
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n.ahsan.shah
22-04-2004 @ 6:18 AM
