By Aerol John Pateña/PNA
MANILA — The landline telephone numbers of Globe subscribers in Metro Manila and neighboring areas bearing the 02-area code will migrate to an eight digit format starting March next year in compliance with the directive of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
This is to ensure that there will be sufficient resources to serve the rapid growth of landline customers in major cities, it was announced on Monday.
NTC has issued Memorandum Order No. 10-10-2017 on October last year which directed all telcos to migrate their subscribers within the area code 02 to 8-digit telephone numbers, from the existing 7 digits, not later than March 31, 2019.
Globe committed to ensure smooth communication services for all affected customers.
“We are working closely with the NTC and other telcos to assist affected customers before, during and after the migration. We would like to see all our customers being aware of this change before it comes into effect,” Globe General Counsel Froilan Castelo said in a statement.
The NTC has assigned a public telecommunications entity (PTE) identifier for telecom operators as an additional prefix in expanding from 7-digit to 8-digit landline number. The assigned PTE identifier for Globe and its subsidiary Innove is “7.”
For instance, a Globe customer with existing landline or DUO number of (02)576-4567 will have to change his or her number to (02)7576-4567 on March 18, 2019, it was explained.
Meanwhile, Bayan Telecommunications customers will follow the numbering format (02)3000-XXXX to (02)3499-XXXX effective on the same date.
Within three months after migration, customers who will still incorrectly dial the old 7-digit number will hear a special announcement, saying the format has been changed to 8-digit. Globe will also remind its customers three months before the migration through all available channels, including SMS, email, and social media.
NTC and local telcos scheduled the migration on March 18, 2019 from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. Affected customers may experience downtime as companies utilize this period to update their system to an 8-digit numbering format.
