Vietnam plans to standardise area codes from February next year

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) has announced plans to change local dialling codes for landline numbers from February next year in a move to clean up the disorder in telephone numbering.

 

MIC Deputy Minister Phan Tam said the change will take place in three phases implemented on February 11, April 15 and June 17, respectively.

During the transition period which will last for approximately one month from the date the new codes will take effect, users can dial landline numbers using both old and new codes.

The dialling codes for the four provinces of Vinh Phuc, Phu Tho, Hoa Binh and Ha Giang will remain the same.

 

The area code renumbering plan is scheduled for completion on August 31 when area codes for all provinces and centrally-governed cities will include three digits and start with 2.

 

The exceptions are Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City where the area codes will be changed from 4 and 8 to 24 and 28 respectively.

 

According to the MIC, due to the division and merging of administrative units in recent years, the length of area codes has become inconsistent, with the codes for some provinces consisting of three digits and some consisting of only one or two digits.

 

The same occurrence is also seen in mobile numbers which have prefixes of different lengths.

 

As such adjustments to area codes and carrier prefixes are necessary to address these inconsistencies, said Tran Manh Tuan, deputy director of the Vietnam Telecommunications Authority.

 

He added that landline traffic only accounts for only 1.6% of Vietnam’s total telecommunications traffic, citing reports from telecoms companies, therefore the impact will be insignificant and last for only a short period of time.

 

Tuan said those mainly affected by the change will include government agencies, business enterprises and other organisations.

 

The change will not affect calls from one landline number to another landline in the same province or centrally-governed city as area codes are not required when making calls in the same province.

 

Under the plan, area codes for provinces in the same region will have the same prefix. For example, provinces in the north-eastern regions will have their area code in the form of 20x, where x will change according to each province.

 

The new code numbering scheme is expected to help reduce the number of area codes for 63 provinces and centrally-governed cities to about ten for ten regions in the future.

 

(Source: NDO)