Foreign phone codes deleted this year

The year 2018 will finally end operating foreign phone codes and Kosovo's +383 code will be used, representatives of the Electronic and Postal Communications Regulatory Authority, (ARKEP), disclose.

Foreign international phone codes, such as the Code of Monaco (+377), Slovenia's code (+386), and Serbia's code (+381) that fixed and mobile operators in Kosovo have exploited, will be wiped out by June of this year.

ARKEP Board Chairman Kreshnik Gashi has told Radio Free Europe that so far, implementation of the +383 code is going according to the previous dynamic in the current code migration plan in the +383 code.

“tactly in fixed phone code 381 all calls can be made with 383, the main Kosovo Telekom operator even in exit calls uses the 383 code, while in mobile phones, the 383 code is used in incoming calls from other countries towards Kosovo”.

The other “Faza is the stage when the removal of code 381 will begin, as well as the use of the exit calls for the 383 mobile phone code, and eventually in June all foreign codes are expected to leave and function only code 383”, Gashi says.

Meanwhile, Gashi says one of the phases that will take place this year is changing the cards of over two million mobile phone users.

“The construction of sim folders will begin in the first six months of 2018, but based on the information we have from the operator Vala, does not mean that this phase will begin on January 1st, but that it will still take place within the first six months of 2018x1>, Gashi says.

Kosovo had been assigned the phone code from the International Communications Union (ITU) in December 2016. This was reached after a telecommunication agreement in Brussels between Pristina and Belgrade.

This agreement, in addition to providing the phone code for Kosovo, also envisioned the disappearance of all operators, illegally assessed on Kosovo's territory.

On 1 May last year, the two Serbian operators stopped operating, especially in the country's north, until the third operator, who had also been illegally operated, was granted temporary and limited licenses.

Despite this, Kosovo Serb citizens had considered the disappearance of two Serbian operators unjust, as they say, “now have an operator that themselves have not chosen”.

Ivana Markovic, a citizen, has said that this prevents her from using a network, and she has been without the number she's been using for years.

If we can't use Telenor and VIP, one of these two networks was mine, why exactly do I have to choose MTS. Maybe I don't like it. It makes me more comfortable with this whole confession. I'm more upset that no one talks about deals openly, we all know it the hard way, when you touch us, first of all in your pocket. For all these operators, we have to give Euros, and I don't fit this at all”, she said.

The first phone call with the +383 code was made in February of last year.