PTA Directs Operators to Provide Free Emergency call Services
Posted by M YASIR
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has directed all telecom operators to extend emergency call services to their customers without any charges purely on humanitarian grounds.
The authority stated this in renewed “The Number Allocation and Administration Regulations, 2011” issued recently.
The emergency services include Police Help, Fire Brigade, Ambulance Services or other specified services that will be declared by the authority as emergency service time to time.
The emergency codes such as 15 shall only be allocated to the organizations working under the umbrella of the government or organizations providing philanthropic and humanitarian services throughout the country at provincial level in different telecom regions.
The regulations stated that obligatory helpline services or customers care center calls shall be provided on nominal charges from the customers.
The licensee has the right to request for geographic and non-geographic numbers as well as short codes in accordance with the national numbering plan developed by the PTA.
The telephone numbers are a national resources therefore they re not owned by a person or organization to which they are allocated or issued whereas a customer may enjoy the beneficial use of the number issued to him/her freely for legitimate purposes, the regulations stated.
Mobile Country Code and Mobile Network Code shall be allocated to Cellular Mobile Operators as well as Wireless Local Loop operators as authorized under their license.
PTA’s regulations stated that number of Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs) should be 99 with a unique National Destination Code (NDC) against each NPA. A number series shall comprise of 10,000 to 100,000 blocks of numbers for cellular operators.
The numbering plan shall be open numeric scheme and it shall comprise of 9-digit numbers.
The cellular subscriber shall be allocated in 8-digit numbers. However for 2-digit NDC, the subscriber’s number shall comprise of 7 digits while for 3-digit NCC, the subscriber’s number shall comprise of 6 digits.
- The structure of existing numbering plan shall be CC+NDC+SN.
- CC is Country Code which is 92 for Pakistan
- NDC is the National Destination Code such as “51” for Islamabad
- And SN is subscribers’ number of cellular operator.
- The code for mobile phone operators is 3 all over the country.
- The Issuer Identifier Number shall be issued to recognized operating agencies which are authority by PTA to issue SIM cards within Pakistan as per ITU-T recommendations.
Click here (PDF File – 1.8MB) for for detail view of the regulations.
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