Massive take-up of mobile phones prompts urgent rationalisation program

MODERN life is ruled by numbers. We've all got heaps of 'em - credit cards, telephones, bank accounts, store accounts, frequent flyers ...

Wouldn't it be lovely if life could be that simple for humans? If we want to be silly about simplifying the numbers system, imagine implanting microchips in babies at birth. They would have a unique identification number for life and it could be used for telephones, credit cards, emails, tax payments and the pension.

The numbers we use most in everyday life are for telephones and we've grown used to deciphering the information in them. For instance, a phone number will tell us at a glance whether it's a fixed line or a mobile, and if it's fixed, where it is and therefore roughly how much it will cost us to call.

Geographic identifier - 02 for NSW

Most fixed-line phone numbers have a geographic identifier - 02 for NSW, 03 for Victoria and Tasmania, 07 for Queensland and so on - as well as a city or suburban locator. If I am asked to call a 9977 number in Sydney, I know it's in my local area and it will be at my local call cost. A 62 number designates Canberra, and that will be charged at a higher rate.

But all this may be about to change. Australia's telephone numbering system is bursting at the seams. Just 13 years after its last, disruptive evolution that made us all change our numbers - and signage, stationery and advertising - a new program of rationalisation has begun.

This time no wholesale number changes are envisaged. But the Australian Communications and Media Authority last week kicked off a process likely to dramatically change the numbering system to make it more efficient and capable of handling increasing pressures and new technologies.

The media watchdog

ACMA is best known as the media watchdog, administering broadcasting rules and regulations. It also licenses and manages users of radio spectrum from emergency services to mobile phones, facilitates deep space radiofrequency research and presides over the telephone number plan. In all, it has a role in administering 37 acts of parliament.

Last week's announcement of a call for submissions on phone numbers is the first of a four-step process. The need for a rejig is urgent because since the last changes in 1997 there has been a massive uptake of mobile phones.

This has distorted old arrangements. For instance, 1800 numbers were created so businesses could entice long-distance callers to make free calls in the expectation that the cost would be covered by profits from sales generated. Calls from mobiles are not free, raising the questions: should they be free, and do we need 1800 numbers any more?

The telephone charging regime instituted more than a century ago is based on distance. We all knew it would cost more to phone from Sydney to Perth than Sydney to Penrith. STD pips used to alert us to the fact we were calling long distance and paying higher costs, but they have gone by the wayside, along with the telephonist who used to break into a conversation every three minutes to ask "are you extending?"

But distance doesn't matter in modern telephony. It is often cheaper to call California than Canberra because telephone companies can buy bulk cable capacity at a fraction of the rate charged for local lines. As well, a rising number of consumers are locked into fixed monthly payments on capped plans where some calls can even be free.

Another area demanding new thinking revolves around voice-over-internet calls. Some, such as Skype computer-to-computer calls, are free and require an email address rather than a number. Others connect via the telephone system at a fraction of the cost of standard calls. Clearly, this is the way of the future but what is not clear is how the explosion of VOIP systems should be managed.

A savvy marketer who knows when a phone-carrying potential customer is approaching his or her store would be able to send an SMS advertising the day's specials. That's a scary or smart idea depending on your point of view.