A security enhancement by the Central Government has resulted in the Department of Telecommunications to issue directives to port all mobile numbers from the 10 digit sequence to 13 digits.

The 13 digit mobile number porting directive is only meant for M2M mobile numbers and will not affect general mobile users currently. Ministry of Communication has written a letter to TRAI. Speaking on the matter, a ministry spokesperson said, “13-digit mobile numbering scheme has been approved for SIM-based M2M devices.” The ministry further added that DoT has approved the 13 digit protocol for SIM based M2M machines, which will coexist with the 10 digit mobile numbering scheme, that is allocated for the Unified License.

BSNL, in its message to media has said that it has already sent directives to its hardware vendors, ZTE and Nokia. 13 digits mobile number will make India a country having the longest mobile numbers.

The implementation and the affect

BSNL confirmed that the governments decision had come on January 8 amd the public telecome operator has started to implement the new policy. M2M refers to wireless data communication between machines. M2M is commonly used in machines where data has to be collected from remote sources. Basically it means that you and me will not be affected.  We just need to remember the 10 digits.

As per the directives, all M2M numbers issued subsequent to July 1, 2018 will have 13 digits. Existing 10 digit mobile numbers will be ported effective Octobre 2018. The porting deadline as communicated by the department is 31 Dec 2018.

UT has taken additional information from the BSNL offices in Udaipur. BSNL said that as of date, simply directives have been issued and that the standard operating procedure for updating the existing 10 digit to 13 digits is still not defined. The officer added that it is possible that a suffix or prefix 3 digit be added to existing numbers based on either the provider or the zone.