The ITU-T study group on numbering will approve revisions to...

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), unless sufficient objections are raised by Jan. 10, the director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau said in a letter to members. A formal approval process is required because of regulatory considerations. The proposed revisions deal with presentation of information on national numbering plans to all interested parties, including information on changes that influence routing, charging and accounting of international telecom traffic, a draft document said. The recommendation also helps to collect other information, such as national-only numbers related to emergency and other important services, such as child help numbers, and information on the implementation of E.164 number portability, the draft text said. E.164 numbers comprise the international public telecom numbering plan used in the public switched telephone network and some other data networks. The new recommendation asks governments to invite operators to implement the country code 888, the draft text said. The country code has been assigned to OCHA to spur the provision of an international system of naming and addressing for terminals involved in disaster relief activities in an area of a country that has been cut off from its national telecom system until normal operations can be restored, it said. The use of these numbering resources will thus be relatively short-lived and may be reused at a later date for another location, it said.