[Now everyone’s toll free number will start from 1800]
By Government agencies and business houses operate a pristol free number for their clients. The purpose of this is to enable the service recipients to contact the agency free of cost.
Telecommunication service providers have been providing such services to companies and agencies as per the need. Prior to this, Nepal Telecom had been providing 11-digit toll free number starting from 1660. Similarly, Ncell had been providing 10 digit mobile number as toll free number as per requirement.
Now, with the objective of managing it, the regulatory Nepal Telecommunication Authority has made such arrangement by issuing short code and toll free number management procedure, 2077, used in telecommunication services. According to the new arrangement, the toll free number provided by all service providers will start from 1800 and the toll free number will be 10 digits.
One number after 1800 will be the code of the service provider and the remaining five numbers will be the subscriber number. More importantly, all telephone users will be able to use this number.
Until now, the toll free number provided by Ncell is not allowed to call from Nepal Telecom and the toll free number provided by Nepal Telecom is not allowed to call from Ncell. Now, users of all service providers will be able to call the toll free number, ‘said NEA director Amber Sthapit. According to the established, such an arrangement will end the hassle of companies having to take a toll free number according to the service provider for a service.
In addition, the service recipients will be able to contact any service provider for free even if they are using a SIM. “This type of system has been implemented in foreign countries for a long time,” says Sthapit. Provision has been made to modify the toll free number provided earlier according to the new code.
If the service provider has to implement it in the first 6 months, they will be able to make it run on both numbers for the next 5 months, i.e. for the next one year. After one year, there will be only new numbers according to the new procedure.
According to the new procedure, service providers will not be allowed to charge a separate fee for providing toll free numbers. The toll free tariff should be as prescribed by the authority. The details of the toll free number service provided in this way are mentioned in the working procedure that the service provider has to submit to the authority.