+383 phone code functioning next year

Over two million mobile and fixed phone users, since June next year, will use Kosovo's +383 phone code, ending operating foreign codes in Kosovo, competent authorities suggest.

As of this week, the number of calls from Kosovo's fixed phone, in different countries of the world, has been expected to be identified with +383, Kosovo Free Europe, Kosovo Telekom Technical Director Mehdi Latifaj, has told Radio Free Europe.

The number of callers will be identified +383, then the following number from which the region is called”, says Latifaj.

Otherwise, the International Telekomunication Union (ITU) in December last year shared the +383 telephone code Kosovo, after an agreement reached between Kosovo and Serbia on telecommunications, with the ease of the European Union.

The first phone call with this code, however, was made to Kosovo Post Telecom in February this year.

Board of Regulatory Communications and Posting Authority Chairman (ARKEP) Kreshnik Gashi has told Radio Free Europe, that implementation of this process takes time because it precedes two phases.

The first “Faza is the stage in which the incoming calls are made in the +383 code on the mobile phone, which lasts until the end of this year. And the second phase begins in early 2018, where it is envisioned to change the R.C.E. cards and final removals of the current mobile phone codes”.

This is a shorter time to implement the +383 code, which means by the end of this year the +381 code will eventually be removed from use on fixed phone”, Gashi said.

But, in Serb majority populated areas based on the Brussels agreement, Kosovo is obliged to provide a temporary and limited permit for a Serbian mobile operator, MTS.d.o.

This operator, Gashi says, is registered in Kosovo and implements the laws of the Republic of Kosovo.

“This operator is obliged to also implement the portion of the transition to the+383 code, both under the Brussels Agreement, as well as on the immigration plan drafted by ARKEP. This operator should be passed to the 383 numeration on the basis of the dynamics before, just as for all other operators”, Gashi says.

Currently, in Kosovo three mobile and fixed phone operators operate, which use international foreign codes. Mobile phone “Vala” uses Monaco's code (+377), IPKO's Slovenia Code (+386), while fixed phone uses Serbia's code (+381).

In the absence of the telephone code, only Kosovo Telecom, which uses +377, officials of this company say, has paid for using the 3m-euro Code for Monaco Telecom, while commercial losses of up to 6m euros.

But according to them, the total cost caused so far by the lack of the telephone code, Kosovo Telecom has cost over 250m euros.