Telephone numbers in Singapore

The Singapore telephone numbering plan, also known as the National Numbering Plan, is regulated by the Numbering Management Department of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), taking over the role from the Telecommunications Authority of Singapore upon its formation in December 1999.

Due to the small physical size of Singapore , there are no area or trunk codes, with the Public Switched Telephone Network, Radio Network and IP Telephony all belonging to one numbering area, and thus comes in the same 8-digit numbering format. Numbers are categorised based on the first digit, thus providing ten possible categories, of which six are currently in use and the remaining four reserved for future usage.

Country Code: 65
International Call Prefix: 00x Calling by default is 001 as landlines are by SingTel,008 for StarHub and 002 for M1.

[+] History

Until 1985, subscribers' telephone numbers in Singapore were six digits, but in that year, these changed to seven digits. In 1995, the digit '9' was added to mobile phone services, making numbers eight digits, and on 1 March 2003, the digit '6' was added to existing fixed line telephone numbers.

[+] Numbering Plan

[+] Number ranges

3xxx xxxx - Voice Over IP services
6xxx xxxx - Fixed Line services inclusive of Fixed Line Voice Over IP services like StarHub Digital Voice and SingTel mio Voice
7xxx xxxx - Messaging services
8xxx xxxx - Mobile phone services
9xxx xxxx - Mobile phone services Includes Paging Services like SUNPAGE
800 xxx xxxx - Toll-Free International services
1800 xxx xxxx - Toll-Free line services
1900 xxx xxxx - Premium Service Fee line services

[+] Short codes

0xx - International access code
1711(SingTel)/171*(M1) - Speaking clock
999 - Police
995 - Singapore Civil Defence Force/Emergency Ambulance
993 - MOH Special Ambulance Service (for suspected cases of H1N1 and SARS)
1777 - Non-Emergency Ambulance
16xx - Service Providers' Customer Services
13xx - Voicemails
18xx - ICC

[+] Calls to and from Malaysia

Calls to and from Malaysia do not require international direct dialling (IDD) codes, a legacy of when Singapore was part of Malaysia until 1965. To call a number in Singapore from Malaysia, a subscriber would dial the area code 02, instead of the Singapore IDD code +65.

Similarly, until 1995, calls to Malaysia from Singapore were direct, with only the area code and number being required, hence 03 for Kuala Lumpur instead of +60 3, but in that year the Subscriber Trunk Dialling prefix 020 was adopted, owing to the divergence of the two countries' numbering plans.

Numbering have been changed since the liberalization of the telecommunications industry, with new carriers requiring different dialling arrangements system for calls to Malaysia, which require the use of the +60 country code, for example, to call Malaysia using M1, a subscriber would dial 02160, while making the same call using StarHub, the subscriber would dial 01860.

[+] Calls to Indonesian Border Towns

Calls to Batam, Samarinda, Pekanbaru and Tanjung Pinang in Indonesia require only the code 011, followed by the area code (minus '0') and the subscriber's number, hence to call a number in Batam from Singapore, a subscriber would dial 011 778 xxx xxx, instead of the international code +62 778. Calls to the rest of Indonesia, including those to mobile phones, require international dialling, as do calls made using other carriers in Singapore, such as StarHub and M1.

[+] International Direct Dialling

The default international access code from Singapore is 001 - there are other codes in the 00x range, while VoIP services, like Zone 1511, use prefixes in the 15xx range. For example, to call a number in London using Zone 1511, a subscriber would dial 1511 44 20 xxxx xxxx.

Other international access codes in the 00x range will select various providers. Access codes in the 0xx range (e.g. 018 - StarHub's VoIP services or 019 - SingTel's VoIP services) will indicate a Tier 1 VoIP provider. Access codes like 1xxx (e.g. 1511) are indicative of a Tier 2 VoIP provider.

[+] External links

• Numbering information
• National Numbering Plan
• Telephone services in Singapore
• Singaporean in Europe and all about local Singapore (authorised by IDA)