The main event in telecommunications last month was the one that did not take place: the switch from the 03 cellular prefix to the new code, 71. Less than two weeks before the changeover on September 18, the ministry of telecommunications told the nation’s phone users that the old numbers would remain valid for the time being.
The reason given by the MoT for reversing its decision to change cellular prefixes now was a sensible assessment that further adjustments in the national phone numbering plan would mandate another switch in landline prefixes, most likely next year. A two-phased switch would have caused extra costs to businesses and individuals, by forcing them to print new business cards, stationery, brochures, and so forth not once but twice.
While the decision gave consumers and companies a reprieve in having to visit the printers and commission their communications agencies for producing new corporate materials, it came a bit late for the communications planning of the parties directly involved, MoT/Ogero and network operators MTC Touch and Alfa. According to industry insiders, they had made bookings for extensive billboard campaigns that could not be cancelled.
Thus, the Lebanese public in mid September was treated to extensive telecommunications advertising of apparently somewhat unplanned nature and cost that media industry sources estimated at some $50 per day and billboard, or about $75,000 a day. The advertising budget for the originally planned campaign to introduce the new cellular prefixes had been signed for to equal parts by the ministry and operators.
Given that expenses for such a measure can run to substantial amounts, local companies weary of having to renew their corporate materials should be able to breathe easier for the moment. While the general manager of a major PR agency in Beirut said one could not provide a general cost figure for changing all of a client’s corporate materials to the new phone numbers, he estimated that just for his own firm of 25 employees, changing everything involved could cost as much as $10,000.
It has been known for years that Lebanon’s six-digit phone numbering is no longer sufficient and as network managers at Ogero confirmed, the system-wide change of the prefixes will have to take place eventually. Compared to the inestimable total cost that the nation’s phone users would have been forced to bear due to the September switch, the sudden cancellation of the public awareness campaign last month was certainly a minor problem. What remains is the question why the decision for a two-phased changeover had been taken in the first place.
