More digits to dial

As of December 5, making a local phone call in Poland is not much different from making a toll call. Even when calling the next-door neighbor, one will have to dial '0' and the two-digit city code before dialing the actual phone number, just as when calling another city.

The number of digits in a local telephone number will thus grow from seven to 10, meaning that a caller will have to dial more numbers for a local call than to a mobile phone, which requires just nine digits. When a subscriber uses an independent operator's services, and must dial a prefix before the actual phone number, the number of digits could grow to 14.

The need to dial the local prefix doesn't apply to three-digit emergency numbers, four-digit numbers and six-digit information numbers.

One of the main reasons for introducing the new system was the fact that in large cities, Poland is running out of combinations for new numbers.

The use of city-code prefixes will make it possible to increase number capacity by as much as three million in every area code.