ICASA's new number recycling regulations have been released

Luis

Luis

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ICASA's new number recycling regulations have been released

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has published the Numbering Plan Fourth Amendment Regulations, 2026, which outline when a cellphone number can be deactivated.

The amended regulations primarily focus on number recycling and the deactivation of unused mobile numbers. It also amended several definitions in the Act.
 
"According to the new rules, a mobile number can be declared inactive if it hasn’t performed any “Revenue Generating Activity” for 90 consecutive calendar days."

So we are basically renting our number for 3 months from the carrier.
 
I didnt use one of my LTE mobi devices as i was travelling.. came back... number deactivated, recycled and someone else was using my datashare.... none of these notifications came to the main contract holder but to the device itself that no one reads in device sms's.
 
Mobile number to log into WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. lose that number and lose those accounts.
 
Regulations should change that you get longer telephone numbers, lots of the world already has this, so it's just contact forms that need to be fixed.

Then you can recycle numbers after decades instead. It's a real issue that you get numbers from people who had stuff like debt collectors after them or all the other spam.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Regulations should change that you get longer telephone numbers, lots of the world already has this, so it's just contact forms that need to be fixed.

Then you can recycle numbers after decades instead. It's a real issue that you get numbers from people who had stuff like debt collectors after them or all the other spam.
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Yep. I have to disable my MTN Pi line between use or receive spam calls and SMS all day. I already shut down the previous owners Facebook and WhatsApp accounts.
 
KingLv said:
"According to the new rules, a mobile number can be declared inactive if it hasn’t performed any “Revenue Generating Activity” for 90 consecutive calendar days."

So we are basically renting our number for 3 months from the carrier.
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Thats annoying. Because with wifi and having a second data sim it is seldom necessary to put airtime on.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Regulations should change that you get longer telephone numbers, lots of the world already has this, so it's just contact forms that need to be fixed.

Then you can recycle numbers after decades instead. It's a real issue that you get numbers from people who had stuff like debt collectors after them or all the other spam.
Click to expand...
Agreed, I have had my current number for 10 years and still get random call from collection agents looking for the person who presumably had it before me.
 
My wife's (MTN) SIM stopped working. The MTN shop in Constantia Village tried to port another SIM number to her phone but it kept failing. She went back there 4 times and realised they seemed not to know what they were doing

Before this saga was completed, she was seeing 10 to 15 messages a day from people and businesses saying she owed them money or deliveries. It had something to do with a car detailing business in Mpumalanga

After complaining to MTN head office, her original number came back
 
Johnatan56 said:
Regulations should change that you get longer telephone numbers, lots of the world already has this, so it's just contact forms that need to be fixed.

Then you can recycle numbers after decades instead. It's a real issue that you get numbers from people who had stuff like debt collectors after them or all the other spam.
Click to expand...
Or they could force Telkom to consolidate the unused number ranges they have, so that they can be used by any network operator for numbers. After all Telkom has the lion's share of the dialling space, all the numbers starting with 01 through 05, and with possibly only 1% now still being used. ICASA should force them to take all blocks with 100k unused numbers, of which there should be plenty, as Telkom never actually used all the blocks allocated to them, and sell them off to the mobile operators as valid dialling ranges, which would immediately alleviate much of the number shortage, and probably allow at least 5 years before they actually would have to recycle numbers again, as this space, with 100k unused, 10k unused and 1k unused blocks, is a massive number pool sitting there essentially landlocked, and not available.

i do remember updating dialling table years ago running PBX software, and the dialling range that was marked as not used was massive, with huge swathes of number blocks accocated to no area at all, sitting there unused. If it has not been used in 20 years, reallocate it, as the number of landline subscribers that actually still have a copper pair is vanishing fast, all having either ported to VOIP or to using one of the VOIP ranges in the allocation, and this would free up massive number ranges.

Let Telkom bid on their own blocks, and also prohibit them selling off single numbers in a range to claim it as active, as the allocation would be classed as a monopolistic act.
 
Justanotherguybythesea said:
Or they could force Telkom to consolidate the unused number ranges they have, so that they can be used by any network operator for numbers. After all Telkom has the lion's share of the dialling space, all the numbers starting with 01 through 05, and with possibly only 1% now still being used. ICASA should force them to take all blocks with 100k unused numbers, of which there should be plenty, as Telkom never actually used all the blocks allocated to them, and sell them off to the mobile operators as valid dialling ranges, which would immediately alleviate much of the number shortage, and probably allow at least 5 years before they actually would have to recycle numbers again, as this space, with 100k unused, 10k unused and 1k unused blocks, is a massive number pool sitting there essentially landlocked, and not available.

i do remember updating dialling table years ago running PBX software, and the dialling range that was marked as not used was massive, with huge swathes of number blocks accocated to no area at all, sitting there unused. If it has not been used in 20 years, reallocate it, as the number of landline subscribers that actually still have a copper pair is vanishing fast, all having either ported to VOIP or to using one of the VOIP ranges in the allocation, and this would free up massive number ranges.

Let Telkom bid on their own blocks, and also prohibit them selling off single numbers in a range to claim it as active, as the allocation would be classed as a monopolistic act.
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Rather not as there are rules with how stuff is routed based on what the start section of a telephone number is.

Again, 12 digits would be fine, all current would just get 00 at the end.
 
Those rules are easy to change, just like they did when SA went to having 10 digit dialling, there was a transition period, and the current rules also are specific about the regions that are not allocated in a dialling code area as well. Just means a 3 year or so transition period where the blocks will get closed off to any use, and then sold out after auction. After all we have 3 primary cellular ranges, and a few blocks like 010 that are already used for voip, so you can have the other numbers used as well, provided the application for number comes from the correct geographical area as part of the application when you do RICA.
 
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