Ministry drafts rules on vanity numbers

The Post and Telecommunications Department (PTD) of Myanmar’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) has published a draft decision report on a framework of rules to govern so-called ‘vanity numbers‘. Industry stakeholders are invited to submit comments on the report by 8 February 2019. The guidelines set out definitions for vanity numbers – phone numbers with consecutive numbers or a repeating patter – the terms for their allocation and clarifies the rights of the firms allocated the numbers as well as the users to whom they are issued. Included in the guidelines is a requirement for licencees to maintain a database of the vanity numbers it has issued, alongside the identity of the purchaser, the method by which the number was assigned and the price paid for the number. Operators are also forbidden from branding vanity numbers nor associating certain numbers with a particular provider. Further, the regulations will not be retroactive, so subscribers that already use numbers which could be classified as vanity numbers will not be affected.