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SCMP Reporter

The introduction of nine-digit phone numbers could be delayed if all the 'lost' numbers were recovered from operators that are holding them, information technology experts said yesterday.
The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers'  IT division said, for example, that 5 million numbers - mostly  beginning with 7 or 8 - are reserved for pagers. But only 130,000 of them are now in use, since  pagers have largely been supplanted by mobile phones.
The institution made its comment after the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (Ofta) said a ninth digit would have to be added to phone numbers as the existing eight-digit numbers were running out.
Ofta also suggested charging telecoms operators an annual HK$3 fee for each number held, to deter them from holding back unused numbers.
Institution member Raymond Chan Wing-fuk - a former member of the numbering advisory committee of Ofta - said the authority had decided to begin mobile phone numbers  with 6 or 9, and pager numbers with 7 or 8, for its convenience - to tell what network a number was on.
Mr Chan said the authority could recover all the unused numbers reserved for pagers, delaying  the introduction of nine-digit numbers.
Assistant director of telecommunications Chan Tze-yee said a series of numbers beginning with 5  would be issued this year, and there were  plans to issue mobile phone numbers starting with 7.
The engineers' body criticised the proposed HK$3 charge for held numbers as unfair, saying it would be passed on to consumers.
'We are worried that, if HK$3 is not enough, the government will  raise it further,' IT division chairman Samson Tam Wai-ho said. 'The telephone operators can shift the burden to us easily.'
Mr Tam said the shortage of phone numbers was  caused mainly by the numbers produced by  prepaid  mobile phone cards - and telecom operators' failure  to recover those numbers when they  went out of use.



Salvaging old pager numbers 'may avoid ninth phone digit'