Today, May 29, 2008, ANRCTI announced the opening for allocation of the National Short Numbers for Harmonised Services of Social Value 116000, 116111 and 116123.
These numbers will make available the following services: 116000 – hotlines for missing children, 116111 – children’s helplines and 116123 – emotional support helplines. The number 116000 will handle calls that announce missing children, relaying them to the Police; at this number, persons entrusted with raising a missing child will find guidance and support, the operators taking over relevant information on the respective case. By means of 116111, children who need care and protection will find assistance and will be directed towards speciality organisations and resources. Moreover, this service ensures the children’s possibility to utter their fears, to talk about issues that directly affect them and to contact somebody, in emergency. 116123 will provide for the callers to benefit from genuine communications with somebody who listens without judging, this service offering emotional support to people who suffer from loneliness, are in psychological distress or contemplate suicide.
The notices launched on this occasion detail the general and the specific usage terms for the allocation of these numbers. The numbers are to be allocated based on the score resulted from the duly filled in assessment grid corresponding to the requests for a licence for the use of numbering resources (LURN). This grid provides five assessment criteria: nature of the service provided by the requester, potential degree of availability of the harmonised service of social value, requester’s experience in the implementation of national short numbers, capacity of the provider of harmonised services of social value to ensure the implementation of the service for which the number is allotted and to guarantee compliance both with the specific usage terms and with the deadline for activating the number.
These numbers may be allocated only to the providers who concluded a pre-contract with an operator of harmonised services of social value, which provides the service allotted to the respective number cost-free.
The LURN requests for such numbers may be transmitted to ANRCTI, within the inception allocation phase, starting from June 2, 2008 until July 2, 2008. Only the LURN requests that meet all the sending, content and format conditions will be considered.
At a European level, the number116000 has been assigned in no more than six countries (Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Holland and Portugal). In the other EU27 member states, assignation is still in progress. The numbers 116111 and 116123 have been opened for allocation at the European level during the current year and will be implemented upon allocation by the national regulators.