We thank Mr Chan for his feedback and would like to explain how telephone numbers are managed.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, as regulator, allocates numbers to telcos for them to provide telephone services to customers and has guidelines governing their use. For example, numbers that are terminated by customers would be returned to a pool and assigned to new customers after a period of time. This ensures that the allocated numbers are managed efficiently.

When the pool of numbers runs out, telcos will make a request to the regulator for new number ranges. In Mr Chan's case, we were able to assign him a number from our current pool of numbers.

We apologise for having given the inaccurate advice that there were insufficient numbers in Singapore and that the regulator did not release new numbers. We have reminded our staff to be careful when explaining to customers.

Cheam Tze Hui (Ms)
Corporate Communications Manager
SingTel