As per the instructions issued by the Department of Telecom, all existing operators need to use 13 digit mobile numbers for all existing Machine-to-Machine customers. This should be done from October 18 onward. However, this should be implemented from first of the July. DoT has also stated a deadline for the completion of this task and this is set as December 31, 2018.
Yes, news about using 13 digit mobile numbers is one hundred percent true. But, this news is not going to affect existing regular mobile users in India.
There is a huge buzz in social media about the sparking move by the Government of India and that will be hugely impacting the existing mobile users in the country. Well, this is a false buzz set on half information. Department of Telecom has only asked the existing 10-digit M2M numbers to 13-digit numbers from October 1.
Some websites are incorrectly reporting and spreading rumours. All existing mobile users in India will remain unaffected from this decision of the Department of Telecom
Now, the question comes; what is Machine-to-Machine communication?
M2M number is only meant for machines those are connected to the internet. M2M devised or IOT devices will only be impacted by this decision. According to the TRAI recent statement, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication is simply a type of data communication having entities that do not necessarily require human interaction or intervention in the process of communication.
This can also be described as the interaction between only devices. These devices can be cars, ships, aeroplane etc. These machines should be connected to each other using the Internet.  For this sort of internet connection, M2M SIM card is required. The deployment of such machine to machine communication in sectors like utilities, power, logistics, health, transport and shipping has the giant potential to improve the economic development of India. Telecom operators like Vodafone, Airtel, etc are having dedicated M2M services for this kind of communications.