Philippines’ regulator postpones migration to eight-digit landline number system

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in the Philippines has opted to postpone its planned migration to an eight-digit telephone number format, following an intervention from stakeholders of the local banking industry. Previously, the NTC had instructed domestic telcos to start implementing the migration by 18 March 2019 – subscribers of Globe Telecom have been told to add an identifier of ‘7’, while PLDT Inc. users will have the identifier ‘8’ – but GMA News reports that the delay pushes back the plan to 6 October 2019 at the earliest after banking stakeholders including the Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) and the Credit Card Association of the Philippines (CCAP) requested the delay. ‘BAP and CCAP initially requested for deferment of the implementation to January 2020. Extensive consultations were conducted between the Commission, public telecommunications entities (PTEs), BAP, and CCAP,’ a public statement confirmed.