The Telecom Management Bureau of China's Ministry of Information Industry has completed the first phase of unifying short message access codes and has issued the new 8-digit numbers to 353 service providers.

From July 31 to August 11, MII received 353 applications for the new code, of which 351 applications were for inter-province or nationwide value-added service operations of wireless value added service providers.

Following the completion of this first phase of work, MII has entered the second phase to allocate numbers to service providers providing service for users, allowing them to choose new numbers.

There is no extra charge to the service providers to gain these new codes.