Russian operators have started selling “clean” numbers

According to media reports, mobile operators have started to provide their customers with numbers that have not been used before. The purpose of this initiative is to protect SIM-card users from unwanted advertising calls and fraudulent actions.

The Kommersant newspaper, citing Forbes, reports that operators are checking the number before offering it to a buyer. A number is considered “clean” if it is not in publicly available databases that may have been compromised in the past, and if it has not received any spam complaints, even if the number was previously active.
A number is considered “clean” if it is not in publicly available databases that may have been compromised in the past, and if it has not received spam complaints, even if the number was previously active.
Alexey Boyko, a telecommunications expert, explained that operators may have purchased unused numbers from the government in advance. Some of those numbers may indeed have remained inactivated until now.

It has become known that buying such a number from MegaFon will cost 600 rubles, while MTS offers a similar service at a price four times lower. T2 representatives said that they intend to introduce such an option in the near future, but no specific dates have been announced yet.