By Sylvanus Ezieh Acha’ana in Yaounde
Telephone numbers in Cameroon would
switch from eight to nine digits as from November 21 this year, the minister of
posts and telecommunications, Jean Pierre Biyiti Bi Essam has announced. Biyiti
made the announcement on September 25 at a press briefing that held in La
Falaise hotel in Yaounde.
Biyiti also used the press confab to
announce the harmonization of the prefix of mobile telephone numbers in the
country. According to the November modifications, all mobile telephone numbers
including MTN, Orange and NEXTTEL would begin with 6 while all CAMTEL numbers
would begin with 2.
In effect, to avoid any complicated
procedures in the migration from eight to nine digits, subscribers of the three
mobile telephone operators would simply have to add 6 at the beginning of all
numbers while subscribers of CAMTEL would simply add 2 at the beginning of all
CAMTEL numbers.
The move from eight to nine digits,
according to the minister has been triggered by the increasing number of
subscribers from about 8 million in 2007 to about 16 million today. The general
motive for the organisational plan of the new look according to officials of
the Telecommunications Regulatory board, ART is to reinforce clarity in the
attribution of numbers for both telephone operators and subscribers.
It is the third time telephone
numbers in Cameroon are witnessing a change in the number of figures. The first
time the number of digits was increased was in 2001 when they moved from six to
seven digits. Six years later that is in 2007 the number of subscribers
increased, provoking the increase from seven to eight digits.
The migration would incur no administrative procedures or financial cost, the minister
assured.
Biyiti said with the coming of a new
mobile operator, NEXTTEL, a subsidiary of VIETTEL, call cost could eventually
reduce.
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