The mobile company has assured all their customers that all efforts were being maximised to ensure that a change over caused as little inconvenience to them.

MTN Rwanda engineers on Sunday morning confirmed that the change over from old 8 digit system to the new 10 digit numbering system had been carried out successful.

The new system that became operational yesterday was done in accordance to the Number Change Plan announced by regulators, Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency, (RURA).

A statement from MTN said that consequently, all local callers to MTN Rwanda numbers will be adding 78 after the first 0.

"For example the current number 08312345 will become 0788312354. This will apply to any other number on the MTN network i.e. 03123456 will become 0783123456,” read the statement.

"Furthermore, the MTN customers will dial 000 instead of the current 00 when calling a number outside Rwanda for example calls to an England number will no longer be 0044. Callers will dial 00044 or simply +44,” the statement added.

This also means that international incoming calls to MTN Rwanda numbers will no longer have to dial 0 after the country code as previously required. Calling local number +250 083123456 has now changed +250 7883123456.

According to the statement consequently the SMS message center number has changed from the current +250 08110333 to +250 78811033.

Describing the change over exercise as one of the most sensitive and technically challenging initiatives the company has embarked on, senior marketing manager, Yvonne Makolo assured all their customers that no effort was being spared to ensure the change over caused as little inconvenience to them.

She also confirmed that there will be a pre-recorded message in English, French and Kinyarwanda notifying all callers of the change.

"Within this month callers will be connected automatically after hearing this message. The message informing customers of the change will remain live for a further two months but callers will be required to redial the number using the appropriate dialling codes. The messaging service will be discontinued on 1st May, 2009,” the statement says.

The number plan change requirement is a government initiative that aligns the Rwanda numbering and code structure with the region and importantly caters for the growing number of customers for the telecommunications sector.

The new numbering system will enable all telecommunications providers to host up to 10 million subscribers on their system and ensure no numbering change for many years to come.

All telecommunications services providers are obliged by law to enable this initiative.

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