The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media has prepared a draft order “On the approval and implementation of the Russian numbering system and plan”, according to which for long distance calls and mobiles from 2025 it will be necessary to dial 0 instead of 8. Code change was planned for a long time, was postponed several times, and the dates are shifted again… Why these changes are needed – in the material of Izvestia.
The essence of the changes
According to the draft order, for calls within the region, mobile and intercity, it will be necessary to dial the code 0 instead of 8, for international – 00 instead of 8-10. The country should switch to the new numbering system in 2025.
Format 0 and 00, which Russia will switch to, is recommended by the International Telecommunication Union.
It is also planned to switch to a closed dial plan for local calls from 2025 to 2028. The open plan allows for city calls to ignore the area code using a five-, six- or seven-digit number. The innovation will transfer all regions to a closed numbering plan: entering the city code will be required.
The press service of the Ministry of Tsifra explained to Izvestia that the draft order, in fact, is not new – it is a re-issue of the order of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications (predecessor of the Ministry of Tsifra) No. 205 of April 25, 2017 with changed terms. This order was included in the “white list” for the “regulatory guillotine”, therefore, is subject to reissue.
However, there is one important aspect: the current draft of the order, the department noted, “was developed with the aim of consolidating the number“ 122 ”in the Russian system and numbering plan as“ a single service of operational assistance to citizens in the provision of medical care ”.
Why go to zero
Denis Kuskov, general director of the information and analytical agency TelecomDaily, explained to Izvestia that the eight began to be used since Soviet times as an additional call option in addition to +7.
– And when we left the country, we could not dial eight, we had to dial +7, otherwise there would be no connection– he explained. – 00 is such a world standard. In other countries, such zeros are also typed for dialing. There is a kind of unification with the rest of the world.
Kuskov noted that from 2025, it will be necessary to dial not 8 495, but 0 495. At the same time, he suggested that the code +7 could also remain valid.
Numbering plan – close
He also considers the use of a closed numbering plan a reasonable innovation: there are many million-plus cities in the country, and it is likely that “to further increase the number of numbers, such use of a closed numbering plan will be the most logical and correct decision,” Kuskov believes.
– In fact, both the transition to zero and the use of a closed numbering plan are unification, bringing to international practice, global recommendations, everything is quite simple, – Konstantin Ankilov, managing partner of TMT Consulting, told Izvestia. – According to the closed numbering plan, this, of course, will create some inconvenience, but the significance of this is not great, because most of the calls are made from mobile devices or from programmable fixed devices.
Why so long?
The Ministry of Communications has planned to switch to dialing through 0 and 00 since the 2000s. In 2006, in order to prepare for the transition, the emergency numbers (01, 02, 03) that had been used since Soviet times were converted to a three-digit format (101, 102, 103). At the same time, the city codes starting with zero were changed – Moscow moved from 095 to 495.
Russia was supposed to go to zero initially in 2010, then the code change was postponed to 2017. The 2017 order has a new date – 2020. Now the Ministry of Digital Security is again postponing the date of changing the telephone code: from 2020 to 2025.
– There is an urgent need to switch to the use of the national prefix “Mon = 0” when establishing intra-zone and long-distance telephone connections, and when establishing international telephone connections – to the international prefix “Pmn = 00”, therefore it is proposed to do this in more comfortable terms, – the ministry told Izvestia.
Denis Kuskov notes that during the time when the decision was made to change the telephone code, five, or even more ministers were replaced – and each of them had new, more operational tasks.
– The process itself is not technically very complicated, – said the expert. – Of course, it will take some time to get used to it – as they did in Moscow. It will take several months – and the new rules will come into use.
Konstantin Ankilov notes that the transfer from 8 to 0 will require certain technical steps, but the country has been going for this change for more than a decade – and there will be no revolution here.
– There are technical capabilities, it is simply not the most critical task that exists, – he noted. – From the side of the International Telecommunication Union there are only recommendations, these are not some urgent conditions.
We add that not all countries use the international numbering standard: for example, the United States and Canada have a North American numbering plan.