According to the Department of Telecom (DoT)’s new directive, all landline users should add a zero before making calls to mobile numbers from today. Airtel informed its customers to add zero as a prefix before making outgoing calls to mobile numbers. Jio also directed fiber users to do the same: “Please ensure to prefix “0” when you are dialling any mobile number from a fixed-line number.
As per a India Today report, Vi and government telcos BSNL and MTNL are likely to follow suit. There will be no change with respect to dialling numbers for fixed-to fixed, mobile-to-fixed, and mobile-to-mobile calls, it had said. The department further stated that the introduction of a dialling prefix for a particular type of call is not akin to increasing the number of digits in the telephone number.The Ministry of Communications in November had noted that starting January 15, all fixed to mobile calls need to be dialled with prefix ‘0’, to free up sufficient numbering resources for future use. TRAI had noted that prefixing ‘0’ for calls from fixed line to mobile numbers will generate 2,544 million additional numbering resources for mobile services to cater to the future requirements.