On March 1, Vietnam will change up the area codes of 59 provinces and restrict mobile phone numbers to 10 digits.
According to the Department of Information and Telecommunication, the current number system is inconsistent with some mobile numbers consisting of 10 digits and others 11, reports VN Express.
In an effort to streamline mobile numbers, the Department announced that all will be limited to 10 digits. This means that mobile phone users whose numbers begin with 09 will stay the same. However, those with the 01 prefix will be forced to change though there has been no announcement on how 11 digit numbers will be reduced.
Owners of landlines are not as fortunate as they will all be forced to adopt new prefixes that can be seen in the table below:
For businesses such as Lien A Co., a HCMC-based mattress maker, the change require changes to marketing material and packaging.
“We are only given two months to do all of these things. It is really too fast to handle,” Lam Ngoc Minh, the company’s general director told Tuoi Tre.
“Our partners and customers may face difficulty contacting us, and what if our foreign partners cannot reach us?” he added.
Phu Tho, Vinh Phuc, Hoa Binh, and Ha Giang will be the only provinces unaffected by the area code change.
According to Lao Dong, a similar exercise was undertaken in 2008, adding the prefix 3 to all landlines, also causing uproar.
