ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: NUMBERING PLAN REGULATORY AMENDMENTS GAZETTED

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: NUMBERING PLAN REGULATORY AMENDMENTS GAZETTED

• 01 July 2026
• Communications & Digital Technologies
• SA Legal Academy

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has gazetted the fourth set of amendments to its numbering plan regulations under the 2005 Electronic Communications Act – with a reasons document outlining the process followed in determining where changes needed to be made.

Immediately effective, the amendments allow service providers six months to make the necessary arrangements.

Standardising the recycling period for mobile numbers, the amendments were informed by input received during extensive public consultations beginning in September 2023, when a first draft was released for comment. A revised draft was published in July 2025 for further input, as SA Legal Academy reported at the time.

Among other things, the amendments:

• ‘retain the inactivity period to a defined 60 days’
• require service providers to send ‘a minimum of two reminders to the subscriber’ notifying them of the imminent deactivation of an assigned mobile number
• provide for deactivated number resuscitation at ‘no cost’, and
• allow the subscriber an unlimited time in which to opt for ‘the exemption or retention of their number’.

Please click the links below for more information:

• amendments with reasons document
• SA Legal Academy July 2025 report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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