The Daily Mail had this headline a couple of weeks ago: “The 11-digit local phone numbers: Families will have to dial full national code in radical telephone shake-up”. However, what they were reporting wasn’t really news, as it had been reported on the BBC News on 8th September last year. The official press release from OFCOM on March 20th says: “People living in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch will soon have to dial the 01202 area code to make a local call, Ofcom confirmed today. Ofcom has proposed that this change comes into effect on 1 November 2012, subject to consultation. It is designed to safeguard the future supply of landline numbers in the Bournemouth area and avoid the need to change existing phone numbers.”
It went on to explain in that some parts of the UK, phone numbers are becoming scarce, so a small number of people will need to dial the full number when using local phone numbers to enable OFCOM to make more numbers available in these areas. Effectively, the 6 digits after the area code will be able to start with 0 or 1 once they changes come into effect.
To read the full OFCOM press release, click here. To read the Daily Mail article, which warns that many people, particularly the elderly and families, will struggle with this move, click here. To read the original BBC report, click here.
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