From March 1, all 11-digit mobile phone numbers will be changed into 10-digit numbers, said the Ministry of Information and Communications in its recent press release.
Accordingly, all 11-digit subscribers with prefixes ‘016’ of Viettel, ‘012’ of VinaPhone and MobiFone, ‘019’ of GMobile, and ‘018’ of Vietnamobile will be converted into 10-digit ones. Therefore, in theory, there will be around 40 million 11-digit mobile phone numbers to undergo the transformation. This is good news for all 11-digit subscribers as most Vietnamese people consider 11-digit subscribers as spammers. In Vietnam, spammers favor 11-digit mobile phone numbers as they are much cheaper than 10-digit ones.
Currently, the length of mobile network codes is two digits as for prefix ‘9x’, and three digits as for prefix ‘1xx’ while the length of mobile phone number is 7 digits which leads to a dissimilarity in dialing after including the ‘0’ trunk code.
Dissimilarity in the length of mobile phone numbers easily leads to confusion and makes it hard for subscribers to remember as well as does not ensure equality in dialing.
