New Mobilephone Numbers

Originally, I did not want to write about this subject – not interesting enough I thought. Yet, in Egypt everything is being done in such a complicated way that even the simplest issue turns out to be worth mentioning.

According to the NTRA (National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority), Egypt accounts for 74 million mobile users. Now, the NTRA has decided to replace the numbering plan due to the number range limitation.

That’s evident. However, the introduced system seems to be complicated and the related communication is confusing. There are three mobile phone providers: Vodafone, Etisalat and Mobinil. All numbers will get one digit more and change as follows:

 

Vodafone: 010 will be 0100 016 will be 0106 019 will be 0109 0151 will be 0101

Etisalat: 011 will be 0111 014 will be 0114 0152 will be 0112 0155 will be 0115

Mobinil: 012 will be 0122 017 will be 0127 018 will be 0128 0150 will be 0120

The National Regulatory Authority has published a press release on 27 September 2011 according to which the change would start on 29 September (!). A transitional period of four months with both old and new numbers working is planned. However, two days later, the media published the information that the start was postponed until 6 October. The communication authority has a communication problem…

Strangely enough, the mobile phone providers Vodafone, Etisalat and Mobinil don’t deem it necessary to inform their customers by sms. While Vodafone and Etisalat inform about these changes on their homepages, I couldn’t find this issue on Mobinil’s homepage. Communication providers seem to have a small communication problem…

Dear readers, if you have friends or colleagues in Egypt, than start to change the numbers next week, otherwise you will not reach your beloved ones some day!