Ten million new mobile phone numbers are being made ready by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) for use by 3G licensees.

Col Settapong Malisuwan, vice chairman of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) and the head of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said the new wireless phone numbers would use the 093 prefix.

They would be allocated to the wireless service providers with licences to operate 3G on the 2.1 gigahertz network when it is finally up and running.

The NBTC would charge the licensees one baht per month for each of the phone numbers. The allocation of the numbers would be based on the operators’ six-month marketing plans, and no more than two million numbers would be apportioned at a time.

 Currently, there are 300 million numbers in the system. Yesterday, the NTC approved an additional 1.25 million numbers for Advance Info Service (AIS), 1.6 million to Total Access Communication (Dtac) and another 1.75 million to CAT.

 However, NTC will not hand over the new numbers until 45 million baht in outstanding charges since April have  been paid.