- Telephone numbers in Russia
Historically, '7' has been used as the
Soviet Union country calling code . Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, all former republics exceptRussia andKazakhstan switched to new country codes.Russia employs a four-level (local, zone, country, international) open dialing plan. Local telecommunications regulator plans to abandon this and change to a closed dialing plan on all levels by 2009.In 2007 Russia has abandoned open dialing at zone level and now national subscriber significant number consists of 10 digits (excluding prefix) with 3 digits as area code and 7 digits of local number including zone code.
= Long Distance and International Prefix =The international dialing prefix is 8-10 - callers dial '8', wait for a tone, and then dial '10', followed by the country code, area code and number.
According to the new [http://www.minsvyaz.ru/ministry/documents/1548/2563.shtml Russian numbering plan] (in Russian), approved on
The long distance dialing prefix is 8 - callers dial '8', wait for a tone, and then dial the area code and number.17 November 2006 , international dialing prefix 00 will be used starting from 2008.According to the new [http://www.minsvyaz.ru/ministry/documents/1548/2563.shtml Russian numbering plan] (in Russian), approved on
17 November 2006 , long distance dialing prefix 0 will be used starting from 2008.In 2007
monopoly ofRostelekom on long distance or international calls was cancelled. When making long distance or international call a subscriber is able to choose operator either by Hot-Choice or Pre-Select. If subscriber prefers Pre-Select, he makes a call to specified free-phone (8-800-333-0990 for MTT or 8-800-100-2525 RT) or signs a statement at the telephone center and dialing pattern doesn't change. Default regulation in Moscow City is Hot-Choice (not available yet on all exchanges; regional operators apply their own regulation depending on technical availability of Hot-Choice). Available operators are:
* [http://www.rt.ru/ Rostelekom] (RT)
* [http://www.mtt.ru/ Mezhregionalnyi TranzitTelekom] (MTT)
* [http://www.goldentelecom.ru/ Golden Telecom] - Sovintel (GT) - assigned but not active on main market
* [http://www.transtk.ru/ TransTelekom] (TTK) - assigned but not active on main market
* [http://www.orange-business.ru/ Orange] - assigned but not active on main marketIf Hot-Choice is selected dialing pattern changes. After dialing 8 a subscriber waits for tone and then dials operator code (OC) either for long distance call or for international call.List of Area Codes in Russia
Dialing code 495 was introduced on
1 December 2005 to replace 095 in order to make it possible to adopt the ITU convention of 0 and 00 dialing prefixes for local and international dialing respectively. The old '095' dialing code, along with 19 other Russian area codes starting with '0', had been effective until31 January 2006 . In Russian: , [http://lenta.ru/news/2005/12/01/codes/]Due to the use of 8 as both the dialing prefix and the first digit of some area codes, sometimes it may be confusing for foreigners to understand the dialing pattern.
= Special numbers (emergencies) =
= Perspectives =Telecommunications infrastructure in Russia is in process of reforms and modernization. This will end by the year 2012. And before this date all the settlements in Russian Federation will be provided with landline telephone infrastructure. Russia is aimed to pass to usage of closed dialing plan. Usage of '0' and '00' as long distance call and international call prefixes will be provided all over the country (announced to happen in 2008 but evidently will not before introduction of '112' and cancellation of special numbers starting with '0'). 1UV numbers will be used for special services with 112 as universal emergency number: domestic regulator plans to fulfil these plans by the year 2012 (raising number of regions connected to 112 year by year: 2 in 2007, 6 in 2008, 24 in 2009, 44 in 2010 etc.). All these changes are aimed to bring the local regulations to compliance with
ITU andEU recommendations.For a historical overview of the telephone numbering plans in connection with the Soviet Union and now Russia, see ‘ [http://www.artlebedev.ru/kovodstvo/91/ § 91. Краткая история телефонных номеров] ’ "(in Russian)".
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