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Australian Regulator to Release 100 Million New Phone Numbers
Published on:
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has announced plans to deal with a projected shortage of mobile phone numbers that are now expected to run out by 2017.
The proposed 05 prefix will be added to the existing 04 prefix used to indicate that the number belongs to a mobile phone.
To avoid customer confusion, the ACMA is proposing the removal of a small largely redundant '0550' Location Independent Communications Services (LICS) number range which is located in the middle of the '05' number block.
The ACMA also plans to supplement the supply of geographic numbers in regional areas where the existing supply is expected to be exhausted within 20 years and remove the geographic sectors around five capital cities.
"Demand for mobile numbers is being driven by new technologies like internet capable smart phones, tablets and machine to machine communications," said ACMA Chairman, Chris Chapman. "The ACMA estimates an additional 100 million numbers will be needed to provide an adequate supply for more than 20 years."
To put that into context, the country's population is currently 22.6 million - so even with population growth factored in, they are expecting an average person to need five phone numbers. Many of those numbers will be technical, for call routing purposes (etc) rather than functionary though.
Supplementing the supply of geographic numbers in a number of regional areas will complete the ACMA's plan to guarantee there is an adequate supply of numbers in every geographic area in Australia for the next 20 years. The ACMA's plan is based on number run-out analysis it conducted last year.
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