Changing landline area codes: Businesses and people are disrupted

In the opinion of many people and businesses, any change will cause certain disruption.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has just issued Circular 22 on telecommunications numbering planning to replace the old planning and Decision No. 53/2006 on the allocation and use of telecommunications codes and numbers. Accordingly, from March 1, 2015, the fixed telephone area codes of 59/63 provinces and cities will change, causing significant impacts on the lives of people and businesses.

According to Circular 22, from March 1, the landline area codes of 59/63 provinces and cities will change. Specifically, the landline area code of Hanoi will change from 04 to 024, Ho Chi Minh City from 08 to 028, Da Nang from 0511 to 0236, Hai Phong from 031 to 0225, Thua Thien - Hue from 054 to 0234... Only four provinces Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc, Hoa Binh and Ha Giang will keep the same area code. Users will have 60 days to call both the old and new numbers at the same time. After that, the service provider will completely switch to the new area code service.

Telephone directories must be reprinted when implementing Circular 22.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the issuance of this new plan aims to use the number pool in a long-term, economical and effective manner... Our country currently has about 130 million fixed and mobile phone subscribers. The number of fixed phone subscribers alone is nearly 7 million, accounting for 5.4%. While the current trend is that the number of mobile phone subscribers is increasing and the number of fixed phone subscribers is decreasing.

Rapid changes in the market require the reorganization of telecommunications networks and the synchronization of numbering systems to comply with international practices. According to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the change will ensure that there will be no major changes in telephone area codes for decades to come.

According to many people and businesses, any change will cause a certain amount of disruption. Ms. Nguyen Kim Loan, a marketing employee of a private company, said that her company had just made a series of signs, logos, envelopes, headlines, advertising leaflets, etc. at the end of last year (2014), and now suddenly changed the telephone area code, so they will have to change everything again. Not to mention the number of newly printed business cards for the company's employees will have to be completely discarded.

For many businesses, the news of changing the phone number prefix was quite surprising. According to Mr. Bui Van Quan, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Freight Transport Association, it is not yet known how effective the change will be, but transport businesses will certainly suffer economic losses.

“We do not know how much the change in telephone area codes will affect freight transport businesses. But in the short term, it is certain that there will be additional costs for changing documents and procedures,” Mr. Bui Van Quan affirmed.

With 12,000 taxis distributed across 53 provinces and cities nationwide, changing the telephone area code also causes significant damage to Mai Linh Group. In addition to remaking the signboard and repainting the details on the vehicle, which the company estimates will cost about 1 million VND/vehicle, changing the area code also means changing the familiarity of the brand that the company has worked hard to build and is chosen by consumers.

Mr. Ho Quoc Phi, Deputy Chief of Office of the Board of Directors of Mai Linh Group, said: “In addition to the visible loss, every time there is a change, we have to stop the business for at least 1 session to do it. Changing the telephone area code also damages the company's brand. We have created an impression on consumers with such a phone number. Now that it has changed, we have to start over, how to let consumers know that our phone number has changed. So, it is advisable to wait at least 6 months for consumers to gradually get used to the taxi company's hotline number.”

In the difficult economic situation, both businesses and people are gradually looking for ways to improve their lives. Therefore, even though it is necessary to change the area code to develop long-term national telecommunications services, the management agency should also consider choosing the time to implement the change, as well as calculate the transition roadmap so that people can get used to the new area code and businesses have time to make the appropriate transition, avoiding economic losses for both people and businesses./.

According to VOV