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Ways to accommodate the rapid demand for more telephone numbers.

(Ref. https://www.talkroute.com)

Contents

• Introduction
• How are telephone numbers generated?
• Why is the demand for telephone numbers increasing?
• Ways to accommodate the rapid demand for more telephone numbers.
• Conclusion
• References

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Introduction

Telephone numbers, as we all are introduced to, are a long series of numbers assigned to every unique mobile phone or sim cards or telephones in order to establish connection between other telephone numbers but, very few of us know how they are assigned. Didn't you? Let's take a deep dive now.

(Ref: https://callhippo.com/)

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How are telephone numbers generated?

Again, short answer, it depends. In India, mobile numbers on GSM, WCDMA, and LTE networks start with either 9, 8, 7 or 6. Every telecom circle is allowed to have multiple private operators. There are various network providers but some of the leading telecom industries include

• Airtel India (AT)
• BSNL Mobile (CG)
• Reliance Jio (RJ)
• Vodafone Idea(VI)

Each of these providers provide services based on network circles.

So, what are network circles?

Network circles are an amount of geographical area that helps telecom industries to differentiate and provide services accordingly. As of July 2018 there are 23 telecom circles in India. These circles are most of the times recognized as states, but there is a different case for metropolitan cities as they have their own metro zone assigned to them.
Assigning numbers is not as simple as it seems. Talking particularly of India, We have country code i.e. “+91” and every country has its own unique country code that is particularly used in international communications across the borders.
The next part that comes is the 10 digit number that is unique for each user like us, in which the country code is added as a prefix which makes it in the format like "+91 xxxx-nnnnnn". Now, you might be thinking about the difference in the alphabets, basically, The first four digits are indicated as an operator's code. It is impossible to show every possible sequence of numbers and their network operator but here are a few:

(Ref: https://www.braze.com/)

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Why is the demand for telephone numbers increasing?

The most basic reason behind this problem is increasing population.
The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.9 billion in 2020. The UN projected population to keep growing, and estimates have put the total population at 8.6 billion by mid-2030, 9.8 billion by mid-2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100.
When this number sequence was developed, it was not developed keeping in mind the sudden increase in population. So, now, in the coming years we will need to update the telephone number sequence in order to keep up with the population and prevent the breakthrough.

(Ref https://researchgate.net.com/)

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Ways to accommodate the rapid demand for more telephone numbers.

Some countries like North America have been implementing NANP for the numbering system.
The North America Numbering plan (NANP)
NANP is the specified format of telephone numbers in U.S. Canada and many other part of North America.
To specify allowable format let X denote digit that can take any value from 0 to 9.
let N denote any digit from anywhere bteween 2 to 9
Y denote digit that must be 0 or 1

So now we are going to discuss two plans which are old plan and new plan

In the old format the area code, office code and the station code were NYX, NNX and XXXX so the telephone numbers had in the form NYX-NNX-XXXX In new plan the area code, office code , station code are NXX, NXX, XXXX and the telephone number is NXX-NXX-XXXX

Here is the comparison between new plan and old plan:
By the product rule , there are 8*2*10 = 160 area codes with format of NYX in old format, and 8*10*10 =800 are codes with format of NXX in new format. Also, there are 10*10*10*10=10000 station code for both old and new plan.
By applying product rule again it shows us that under the old plan they had has 160*640*10000 = 1,024,000,000 different numbers available. And for new plan there are 800*800*10000 = 6,400,000,000 different numbers available.

Apart from NANP, here are some alternative solutions.

1. Reallocating the existing numbers and re-allocating some other numbers in the “7(0-3)X” levels for mobile services.
2. We can also release most of the Special Numbers for normal allocation, which will be able to release a maximum of 3.52 million numbers to meet the demand.

(ref www.globalcallforwarding.com/)

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Conslusion

There are few ways in which telephone numbering plan can be extended to accommodate the rapid demand for more telephone numbers but, as easier said than done, there are various unmentioned and real life implementation challenges that are yet to be solved but various governments have started working on this issue. For time instance, we have got time to improve and find a way that is most efficient to implement and will be least expensive.
Hope you enjoyed reading the blog and hope we delivered a piece of unknown knowledge to you through the blog !

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References

• Research Papers
  • Survey research with a random digit dial national mobile phone sample
  • A_Regulatory_Policy_Success_Story_Concerning_NPA_and_NANP_Exhaust_and_Numbering_Resource_Optimization
  • Modernizing National Numbering Plan on NGN Platform - Hungarian Case Study
• Articles
  • https://www.assignmentexpert.com/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan

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Prepared By:-

• Ajinkya Mahajan
• Aditya Bodhankar
• Riya Dhakalkar
• Aishwarya Pujari
• Diksha Prasad
• Shivani Mahajan