The migration of landline customers to an eight-digit telephone number format has been moved to October. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) said the migration will be moved from March 18 to October 6.
The migration from the existing seven-digit format to eight digits is in compliance with the directive of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in its memorandum no. 10–10–2017 which orders all telecoms providers in the Metro Manila area to migrate all their customers to eight-digit telephone numbers “to address the insufficient number of assignable exchange codes.” This change applies to telephone numbers with the area code “02”.
Starting October 6, subscribers of the following Telecom will add their own identifiers:
PLDT: 426-1637 to (8) 426-1637
GLOBE: 730-8476 to (7) 730-8476
BAYANTEL: 495-4859 to (3) 495-4859
Special Numbers like (8-MCDO): 8-6236 to (8) 8-6236
The migration process will start early morning of October 6 – from 12:01 AM until 5:00 AM.
Callers from the provinces will only need to do the usual national direct dialing procedure which now includes their Metro Manila contact’s 8 digit number: Dial 0 + Area Code (2) + 8 digits landline number.
Those outside the Philippines will have to do the following: Dial 00 + Country Code (63) + Area Code (2) + 8 digits landline number.
Globe said that for a period of 3 months after the migration, customers who will still incorrectly dial the old 7-digit number will hear a special announcement, saying the format has been changed to an 8-digit setup.