Saudi- Old phone codes cease to work on Tuesday

(MENAFN- Arab News) The Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) has urged customers to use the new area phone codes through telecom providers in the Kingdom. They have asked customers to place an extra number before an area code. For example, Jeddah will become 012 instead of 02. The previous 2-digit area codes will cease to work after 3 p.m. Tuesday. With this, the CITC announced the "final" implementation of the new area codes for the remaining five geographical zones. Sultan Al-Malik, a CITC spokesman, had earlier said that "All landline numbers in the Kingdom will be modified by adding a new digit after zero in the current zone codes." The first phase for area code changes took place in Riyadh last May. The second phase applied the changes to the five remaining areas in the Kingdom beginning Aug. 18. The new area code for Makkah has changed to 012, Madinah to 014, the Eastern Province to 013, Qassim 016 and the Southern Region to 017. A correction message from STC will be played if users dial a number which is previously saved with the old area code. This change will not include numbers within the same city. However, the new digit will have to be added when dialing from mobiles to landlines and from a landline in one area zone to another. The digit will also have to be added when calling from abroad. The old area codes will be kept active along with the new codes for four weeks to allow the public time to adjust to the change. There will be no change in emergency numbers for police (999), fire (998) and emergency medical services (997). There will also be no change to short access codes or numbers starting with 800 or 9200 prefixes, the CITC said on its website. According to the CITC statement, the most important reason for this change is the need to increase the range of numbers available for public mobile communications services, as well as for fixed services, and to contribute to the ability to introduce new services. In addition, this change will enhance the ability of the national numbering plan to accommodate new developments in services and growth in the number of subscriptions and users.