Mobile phone numbers to start with 8

Bangalore: Since the department of telecom has run out of numbers beginning with nine, soon phone numbers will begin with an eight. Around 100 million new numbers will soon be introduced in the market which will begin with an eight. India ranks fifth in the world in terms of total mobile phone connections shipped.

It has been eleven years since mobile telephony was opened up for private participation in India, and the country now ranks after only China, the U.S., Russia and Japan in absolute numbers of mobile phone connections.

Soon the Department of Telecom (DoT) will be able to verify the exact subscriber numbers using fresh evaluation criteria. Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said, "Even if there are discrepancies, they won't be over 5-6 percent. Besides, it is a fact that more handsets are sold than corroborated by operators."
According to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India), India's mobile subscriber base was 415 million towards the end of May 09 compared to 277 million, a year ago. With the current rate of growth the telecom department plans to make mobile phone numbers to 11 digits.