KARACHI, Aug 7: Subscribers of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) whose telephone numbers were changed under the national telephony number plan will lose their old numbers this month.

The PTCL is implementing a new national telephony numbering plan which was approved by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) last year.

Sources in the PTA told Dawn that the existing numbering plan needed rationalization to cater to the needs of new operators in the deregulated era as well as the requirements of new services.

“The new numbering plan is based on a uniform 9-digit numbering scheme with two patterns — a 2-digit area code for heavily populated areas plus a 7-digit subscriber number or a 3-digit area code for less populated areas plus a 6-digit subscriber number.”

They said that in Karachi, telephone numbers beginning with “7” and “8” were changed. They added that the prefix which had been changed included: 721, 722, 723, 724, 751, 752, 753, 754, 778, 779, 772, 773, 775, 776, 777, 774, 811, 812, 813, 801, 802, 803, 814, 815.

The sources said the facility of availability of both old and new numbers would continue till the end of this month. They added that afterwards callers dialling old numbers would be directed to turn to PTCL’s centralized directory assistance service, better known as “17”, for new numbers. They said that information about changed numbers would also be placed on the PTCL’s website.

The sources said that telephone numbers had been changed in other areas of the country as well. “The entire region of Pakistan is divided into 99 Number Plan Areas (NPAs), mostly coinciding with a district boundary as defined in the District Census Report 1998. There are a few exceptions in which two or more contiguous districts have been combined to form larger appropriately-sized NPAs. For example, Karachi city districts / Malir district, Jaffarabad/ Nasirabad, Hangu district / Orakzai Agency and Mansehra / Batagram. There are a few cases where a tehsil or town belonging to an adjoining district has been included in an NPA on account of community interest or their being part of the existing multi-exchange area. For example, Sarai Alamgir Tehsil (in Jhelum), Kotri MC (in Hyderabad), Muridke TC (in Lahore), Jamrud / Bara (in Peshawar),” they explained.