All mobile numbers in India starts with 9, 8 or 7, this includes pager services, but the use of pagers is on the decline. Each telecom circle is allowed to have multiple private operators, earlier it was 2 private + BSNL/MTNL, subsequently it changed to 3 private + BSNL/MTNL in GSM, now each telecom circle has more than 10 operators including BSNL/MTNL.
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All mobile phone numbers are 10 digits long. The way to split the numbers is defined in the National Numbering Plan 2003 as XXXX-NNNNNN where XXXX indicates the network operator and telecom circle, and NNNNNN is the subscriber numbers.
Telecom circles
The Department of Telecommunications has divided India into various telecom circle such that within each circle, the call is treated as a local call, while across zones, it becomes a long-distance call. A telecom circle is normally the entire state, with a few exceptions like Mumbai and Kolkata (which are different zones than their respective states), Goa (which is a part of the Maharashtra zone), Chhattisgarh (which is part of Madhya Pradesh), Jharkhand (which is a part of the Bihar zone) or Uttar Pradesh (divided into multiple zones). Delhi is a unique circle because it includes towns from Haryana and Uttar Pradesh as well. Recent formation of the new state of Telangana has been separated from Andhra Pradesh state which will still remain in the same circle.
From May 20, 2005, calls between
are merged in Inter service area connectate in the above-mentioned four States would be treated as intra-service area call for the purposes of routing as well as Access Deficit Charges (ADC). The dialing procedure for calls within a State for these States would also be simplified i.e. dialling of mobile-to mobile subscribers and fixed-to-mobile subscribers would be without prefixing '0'.
At present, there are 22 telecom circles or service areas. They are classified into 4 categories: Metro, A, B, C. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata fall under Metro category. Chennai service area doesn't come under Metro category, as it has been a part of Tamil Nadu service circle since 2007.