Cairo – 6/6/2010
The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has addressed the three mobile Operators to commence selling the new mobile lines in markets with the new code (015) and 11 digits (for new lines only) starting from Thursday June 10th, 2010.  Mobinil's code will be (0150), Vodafone's code will be (0151) and Etisalat's code will be (0152).

This comes in implementation of the transitional period of the new numbering plan that was previously announced by the NTRA.

Dr. Amr Badawi, the NTRA's Executive President, has said that there would be no change in the implementation date of the new mobile numbering plan and the increase of the length of the mobile number to 11 digits. This will not take place before next year. It will take 14 months to change all existing mobile numbers to 11 digits and the Mobile Operators to complete all their technical installations that ensure the safety and easiness of this change.

It is worth mentioning in this respect that the NTRA announced its new numbering plan and its decision to increase the length of the current mobile numbers from 10 to 11 digits on March 10th, 2010. The NTRA pointed out that this decision was an obligatory decision that the NTRA took and all Mobile Operators approved. The reason for this was the near depletion of the numbering allocated to the mobile numbers. In order to face the persistent increase in the number of mobile subscribers (that exceeds 1 million subscribers monthly) these measures have been taken.

Furthermore, this change will provide a numbering for the mobile numbers that encompass 1 billion numbers for mobile subscribers for a period of time that exceeds 30 years.