Non-smartphone users to start editing local numbers
ALTHOUGH MANDATORY 10-digit dialling is six months away, the country’s major telecommunications providers, FLOW and Digicel, are advising nonsmartphone users to start editing local numbers in their contact list to reflect the ‘876’ area code before the seven-digit phone number.
According to OUR spokesperson Elizabeth Bennett Marsh, the telecoms providers have explained that users of non-smartphones will have to manually input the area code in front of their contacts as there is no facility for them to do it otherwise.
In contrast, smartphone users will have the advantage of utilising applications, or “apps”, that can update a person’s mobile phone contact list by automatically adding the area code.
“We encourage them (nonsmartphone users) to start the process of updating their contact database immediately in order to ensure that they will not suffer any inconvenience once we switch to the mandatory format,” FLOW’s communications director, Kayon Wallace, told The Gleaner on Tuesday.
Her counterpart at Digicel, Elon Parkinson, agreed. “It’s a process that a user can carry out either in one session, where they just go through the contact list and perform the updates, or they could simply elect to case-by-case update their contact list as the opportunity arises,” said Parkinson, who also encouraged users to get into the habit of dialling and saving all 10 digits of a local number.
Come May 31, Jamaica will have its new area code to supplement the existing decades-old code, but there will be a permissive dialling period to allow users enough time to familiarise themselves with the new calling method. During that period, both seven-digit and 10digit dialling will be allowed. However, when the permissive dialling period has ended at 12:01 a.m. on October 30, only 10-digit dialing will be allowed.