Uniform short codes for Telcos starts today

All telecommunications companies in the country are expected to begin using uniform short codes for their various customer service activities beginning today, Monday September 8, 2014.

The National Communications Authority (NCA), which made this known, said it was collaborating with telecommunications companies to make this a reality.

Some activities that would require the same short codes include credit recharging, checking credit balance and call centre enquiries.

Others are value added service such as bulk SMS, short audios and videos.

Presently, telcos operating in the country use different short codes for different customer service purposes, and it gets even more complex when it comes to the number of short codes they use in their numerous Value Added Service activities.

Paarock VanPercy, Director-General of NCA, stressed the need to harmonize all short codes for general customer services across all networks.

“To this end, all short codes for accessing services including Credit Recharge, Credit Balance, and Call Centre enquiries and other such services will be uniform for all mobile telephony consumers in Ghana, irrespective of their network from 8th September, 2014”.

Mr. VanPercy said the new harmonized codes will run concurrently with the old codes until April 2015 in order to give consumers enough time to learn and adapt to the new codes.

“In line with this, the NCA and the telcos would be embarking on a sensitization campaign to create awareness of this new initiative.”

He said the new harmonized short codes will see customers dialing 100 to access their Call centre; 134 to recharge credit; 124 to check balance; 600 for porting services (MNP); 400 for verification of SIM registration; 108 for voice mail deposit and 109 for voice mail retrieval.

Apart from the voice mail service, which may come with charges determined by a service provider, all the other short codes are free to use.

Explaining further, Mr. Van Percy said all consumers must replace the old short code with the new short codes.