India running out of mobile phone numbers? Not quite

She has a number

Is India running out of telephone numbers?

According to the Times of India, yes. According to most analysts, not so much.

First, TOI:

It was inevitable, but it is now closer than ever. All the phone numbers series currently in use, like the ones beginning with 98 or 99, are quickly getting used up with the subscriber base in the country expected to reach a billion and beyond by next year.

It is, perhaps, inevitable. But analysts said it?s unlikely anytime soon given that that 1bn subscriber forecast is inflated by millions of dead connections ? to the tune of 25 per cent ? and that the government has introduced new series of phone numbers that begin with 7 and 8, as opposed to the 9s used in the past.

?There might be a serious problem if a new series of numbers are not brought in by the middle of next year,? Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India, told TOI. ?We are theoretically reaching the limit of existing number sets with a subscriber base of one billion.?

Mathews probably knows that as serious as the jump from 10-digit phone numbers to 11 or 12 digits might be, the industry has bigger fish to fry.

?It may pose issues for the operators to move from a 10 to 11 or 12 digit scheme,? said Prashant Singhal, of Ernst & Young. ?But in the context of where we are in the industry right now, there are bigger issues we need to deal with.?

Indeed, cancelled licenses, sky-high spectrum fees, a re-auction of 2G spectrum and an uncertain policy environment are just a handful of the many big issues facing the sector.

As Singhal put it: ?I?m sure none of the operators will be losing sleep over this.?

Related reading
Chart of the week: tracking the rising EM middle classes, beyondbrics

Source: http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/10/23/india-running-out-of-mobile-phone-numbers-not-quite/

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