At the moment, telecommunication is the most vibrant and flourishing sector of our national economy. With the introduction of innovative technologies, the telecom sector is expanding at such a rapid pace that it cannot be matched by any other industry.
Growing demand for cell phones, fixed line telecommunications and other value added services has shown spectacular increase over the past few years.
Since 1997, telephone network capacity has increased from 2.6 million to 4.4 million, allocated line in service (ALIS) has enhanced from 1.9 million to 3.7 million, digitalisation has improved from 60 to 100 percent and teledensity has increased from 1.5 to 2.65%.
In addition, Nation Wide Dialing (NWD) stations have increased from 800 to 1781, fiber connectivity has been extended to 223 cities, international circuits have increased from 2500 to 12660 and internet access has been provided to 1900 cities.
Similarly, penetration of cellular phones has risen from 0.2 million in 1999 to 3.4 million till December 2003. Demand growth of telecom systems and services is forecast to continue exponentially in the foreseeable future so that the current teledensity is expected to grow to 10 percent in the next 7 years.
In view of the growing demand for cell phones and fixed line telecommunications in the country, PTA has initiated the process of granting two more licenses to new mobile phone operators and has also invited applications for the grant of Local Loop (LL) and Long Distance International (LDI) licenses to put an end to PTCL monopoly over basic telephony.
Induction of new operators in the cell phone industry and fixed line telecom service will bring a revolution in the telecom sector, devolving heavy responsibility on the PTA, to face the new challenge.
Amongst the critical issues the PTA will have to tackle is the provision of frequency spectrum, interconnection, anti-competitive practices, rights of the licensees and allocation of short code access and numbering.
So far as the numbering is concerned, the PTA has developed a plan for the supply of numbers to the available services, as well as to the services to be introduced, in the future.
To cater to the demands of organisations engaged in providing humanitarian and emergency services, the PTA has must allocate to them, short access codes, to allow the general public easy access to these services.
The PTA has also declared that emergency ambulance services, as a help-line obligatory service, which must be provided by all telecom operators, free of cost, from the fixed line as well as by mobile phones, with access to ambulance codes.
In the coming years, due to the increase in the number of organisations providing philanthropic and humanitarian services, as well as the entry of new operators, who will also require short codes to cater to emergency services, PTA will have to devise a policy of allocating four digit emergency numbers, consonant with the needs of the future.
As such, it is imperative that the public should be kept informed of the utility of allocating short codes.
Different people use different terms for short codes. These codes are also named as 'short numbers' and 'access code'. Actually, a short code is 'a short dialling sequence giving access to a special telephony service'.
A short code is defined as a dialling sequence of up to 5 digits, excluding the trunk prefix, if any.
Historically, short codes were 2 to 5 digits long and were used for a small set of special services like emergency calls, or services, of the incumbent operators. However, two factors explain the increasing use, demand and length of short codes.
Firstly, technological and commercial developments necessitates new numbers for new services. Secondly, the introduction of competition on special services boosts the need of a distinct short code for each service provider.
A large number of short codes could, therefore, be deemed necessary, according to requirements. There are three types of access codes which are identified as under:
TYPE A ACCESS CODES: Type A access codes are recognised as having such widely understood significance, that they may be used throughout a country, by all operators offering equivalent services, and that they will not be used by any operator for any other service.
TYPE B ACCESS CODES: Type B access codes have network-wide significance as they are used by callers, served by one public operator's system, to choose services available from that operator's system, or another public operator's system.
TYPE C ACCESS CODES: Type C access codes are set aside for independent use by operators of public telecommunications systems, to provide customers or operational employees with services, other than the services covered by type A and type B access codes.
Operators, of different systems, have the opportunity to choose corresponding codes where it is convenient and potentially beneficial to adopt a common approach, but are not obliged to do so.
Sometimes ago, the short code services were emergency services (police, fire, medical etc), the directory enquiry services (national, international) and the fault reporting service of the incumbents etc.
These were services that weren't the standard phone calls between two subscribers. But, by now, the usage of telephony has diversified and there are many 'non-standard' phone calls, such as the free phone access code.
Nowadays, in most countries, 800 is considered, by some experts, as a short code, whereas it is considered a non-geographic (NDC) by others.
It is impossible to give a precise definition of what is a 'special service'.
For a user, it does not matter whether 800 is a short code or a non-geographic NDC. However, the following 'service codes' are not considered short codes:
-- Service codes for free phone, shared cost, and shared revenue services.
-- Service codes for all mobile services, including mobile telephony and paging.
Generally, special services, eligible to make use of a short code, include emergency service, directory enquiry, carrier selection, fault reporting, VPN remote access, calling card, operator assistance and access to facilities of network operators
By 'geographical service' is meant the standard line in the local loop, while 'non-geographic service' means any other service eg; a GSM number.
Usually, the impact of moving subscribers from their geographical numbers is greater than the other numbers. Moving geographical numbers, generally, occurs during major changes of numbering schemes.
When a dialling sequence, not beginning with '0', is used for geographic numbers, it means that it is used in the local loop. In most countries where local dialling is possible, the '0' digit is used as the trunk prefix. A short code cannot begin with '00' as this dialling sequence is reserved for international access.
In general, all ranges numbers are used for geographic purposes. From the numbers accumulated per range, one can deduce that the 1XX range is the most suitable for the allocation of harmonised short codes.
There are two main reasons for this. First of all, this is the range, which the least number of countries are using for geographic purposes, since freeing a range of numbers used for geographic purposes, is considered to cause major changes. This is taken as a prime criterion.
The second argument lies in the fact that a lot of countries are already using the 1XX(X) range for short codes.
Primarily, short codes for special services such as emergency calls and enquiries need national and international harmonisation.
It is obviously convenient for customers to remember one code for each purpose and to use it from any telephone in Pakistan. Generally, competing access networks use the same codes, as the codes remain limited to their own customers. Also, each access network may require providing short code access to directory enquiry services, for all access operators.
This could be accomplished by the use of the last digit of the directory enquiry code. A similar approach could be adopted for fault repairs to access from a different network.
Assuming the allocation of three-digit codes in the range 100 to 199, the maximum number of codes available would be 100. While this may seem to be a large quantity when only one operator is offering a limited range of services, it is insufficient to meet the demands arising from the deregulation and liberalisation of the telecommunications systems and services, when a number of operators would be offering telecom facilities.
In these circumstances, it has become necessary for the PTA to adopt four-digit 1XXX codes as the normal provision, with three-digit 1XX codes used only on exceptional grounds for the users' convenience or in conformity with national standards. Because of the enormous use of short codes and their limited availability, all the existing 2-digit codes shall have to be expanded to 3 or 4 digits.
In Pakistan, normal allocation will be a three or four digit (1XX or 1XXX) code but expansion to five or more digits can also be considered to allow further market segmentation, possibly divided into the types A, B and C, as stated above. Wherever appropriate, different access codes can be concatenated, followed by access to a second operator's services, to allow choice of operators.
Public system operators will use access codes for various services. Arrangements will have to be made for the withdrawal of some of the access codes to release codes for re-allocation, as Type A and B and the development of a coherent plan for 1XXX codes.
Further rationalisation of Type C codes can also be required to resolve the problems, if any. The mechanism for achieving this objective could be discussed with the operators.
Long distance operators can be allocated carrier selection codes. These codes will be 4 digit numbers, starting with "10," to be dialed before the subscriber number or the international prefix (00) to select the corresponding operator.
Short codes, already in use, will be permitted to remain in operation, depending on the requirements of the future. However, many of them will have to be changed within a year or two.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority aims at harmonising the most commonly used short codes.
The goal of this harmonisation is for the users to have a common knowledge of the set of basic services usually accessed by short codes, like the emergency services, directory enquiry services, forthcoming carrier selection and so on.
Harmonisation also aims, in the long term, at increasing the comfort of the users, though it may imply a long learning process by the users.
By 'harmonised short code' is meant a common short code in the numbering scheme that gives access to the same kind of service. The categories of services for a possible harmonisation are emergency service, directory service, fault repair, access to VPN, calling card, network operator assistance (customer care), UPT access codes and access to facilities and services of network operators or service providers.
Requests for dedicated short code space to access network can be considered by the PTA only against clear justification, as short codes are strictly limited resources and all future access networks would be treated on equal terms.
Comments
Comments are closed.