As per industry sources, all landline users across India will need to prefix a ‘0’ to make outgoing calls to any mobile number from January 15, 2021. This is in line with a Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directive.
Bharti Airtel has already informed its customers about the new requirement and Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio, BSNL and MTNL are likely to do the same soon.
Earlier in November 2020, the DoT had issued a circular stating that all fixed line-to-mobile calls would have to be dialled with a prefix ‘0’ from January 15, 2021, onwards. However, there would be no changes in the dialling plan for fixed-to-fixed, mobile-to-fixed and mobile-to-mobile calls.
Further, the DoT had also directed telcos to ensure suitable auto-announcements are entered into all fixed-line switches to remind landline users about the new change.
With this directive, the DoT aims to free up sufficient numbering resources for mobile services amid the continued rise in India’s mobile user base and fall in wireline connections. The government expects around 2,539 million numbering series to be generated after the implementation of the 0 prefix regime.
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