Q8Ba7th Official Blog

If you are living in Kuwait, you should already know that by 17th October, the Ministry of Communication will start rolling out the new phone numbering plan, adding an extra digit to all 6 and 7 digit numbers as follows:

1. MOC 7 Digits Numbers: Add 2
2. MOC 6 Digits Numbers: Add 1
3. Zain Numbers: Add 9
4. Wataniya Numbers: Add 6

Zain is going to start their testing on 18th of this month for Zain-to-Zain calls, and reports say Wataniya have already started their testing. The testing period will wrap up 6 months as I know, during which both the old and new numbering plan will be working, to educate public on the new numbering plan, and start migrating gradually.

There is an awful lot of work and money being put by telecom companies, and all other corporates will need to be updating their customer contact information as well. But what about us the end users? Once the migration is completed, all our mobile contact information will be incorrect, and we will have to manually check each number, see for whom it belongs, and add the new digit accordingly.

Thus, I have quickly developed a tool for converting the old Kuwait numbers to the new ones. The software is available in two versions, Windows only (VB), and Java for all platforms. To avoid the hassle of developing the application for each phone differently as well, the program does not integrate with your phone at all. Rather, it expects your phone contact information in CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. The program will go through it, find Kuwaiti-patter numbers (e.g. 7 digits, 6 digits starting with 8, +965, +00965, 00965), and add the new digit accordingly.

Online Version: You can now try the online converter version without need of installing any additional software.

Download (Offline Version):

• Eight_Digits_Converter.jar (Version 0.3.0) – Java JAR File (All platforms) – Requires JRE 1.6
• EightDigitsConverter.zip (Version 0.3.0) – Windows Installer (Windows only)

For Java Version: Please make sure after installing JRE 1.6 that you set it as the first to use. For Mac, check the Java Application Runtime Settings. For Windows and Linux, check the path environment variables.

Instructions:

But First: Important Notes

The software in hand processes CSV files blindly, and does not use country field to distinguish Kuwaiti from non-Kuwaiti numbers. Instead, it will process the file, and whenever a pattern of Kuwaiti number is found, it will convert it accordingly as a Kuwaiti number. Kuwait patterns are numbers like: 7 digits, 6 digits starting with 8, +965, 00965, and +00965. 3 digits numbers are still the same and will not be altered. If you have numbers of such patter in your list that are non-Kuwaiti numbers, especially the 6 and 7 digits, make sure you handle them separately later on, or take them out of the CSV file and recreate them manually.

Also, if your contacts contains Arabic or non-English characters, please make sure you use UTF-8 format in your file. Unicode formats will not work.

1. Synchronize your phone with your favourite PC address book software. This could be Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird for example.
2. Once done, export your contacts from your address book into a CSV (Comma Separated) file format, say contacts.csv. Make sure you remember the location of that file.
3. From 8 Digits Converter, Click on Browse next to the Source File textbox field, and browse to your newly generated CSV contacts file, contacts.csv in our case, then click Open.
4. By now, Destination File should be already filled with same path as original, contacts.csv file, with a trailing 8-digits file name, e.g. contacts-8-Digits.csv. You may change this location if you like, but we suggest you keep it as it is.
5. By default, all Kuwaiti phone numbers will be convertered. If you require only specific numbers to be converted, e.g. Wataniya numbers only, uncheck the unwanted prefixes, for example, MOC and Zain.
6. Click Convert. This process will take a while, depending on your file size.
7. If successful, once done you will see a log in the designated area, and stats about the processed and generated file. A log file is also created for your future reference in the same directory with .log extension.
8. Go back to your address book and delete all contacts.
9. Import the new contacts-8-digits.csv file back to your address book. This should create the same old contacts with the new numbering plan.

Browse now and skim through your contacts. Make sure you all your contacts are there. If there is a problem, delete all contacts, and import the old file, contacts.csv, back to the address book to restore it to the original condition.

Terms Of Use:

8 Digits Converter is an offline FREE tool from Q8Ba7th.com that will help you update your phone contacts to the new 8 digits numbering plan coming to Kuwait October 2008. The applicaiton has two versions, Windows only, and Java to be platform independent, so you should be able to run it on your Windows, Mac, or Linux system of choice. The Java version however uses the latest Java version, so make sure you have JRE 1.6 or later installed on your system before you try to run it.

The software is provided as is, use it at your own risk. Always keep a backup of your old contact information in case you need to get back to it. Conversion is done based on the officially announced new numbering plan in the newspaper, aided by further checkings with mobile operators. Should there be any mistake in the conversion, we encourage you to inform us about it.

The software is being provided absolutely FREE. Feel free to use it and share it, as you like. It was meant to help people do the transistion. We encourage people however to download the software directly from our site, to ensure they get the latest release with all the updates. Please note that you are not allowed however to do any modification on the code, part of it, change or add anything to it, or claim ownership of this product. You should not also try to use it for commercial purposes
like selling, rebranding or service providing.

While this software is FREE, and we believe will be important for many people to migrate to the new numbering plan, we are open for business owners who would like to discuss sponsoring this program, having their brand shown on the web page and software it self. If you like to sponsor this software, do send us an email at the address provided below.

Also, please note this software is still in Beta, until we gather enough feedback and do enough testing. So if you find any bugs, or would like any further assistance, please do let us know by adding your comments here below, or sending us an email here.

Hope you find it useful. Happy Gergean from Q8Ba7th.com

Known Errors:

• Some people reported errors on Windows installer. We are checking that out right now.
• Java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Sorry guys. This’s been a mistake from my side. The JAR file was missing some core GUI classes and won’t run on all systems. (FIXED NOW)

UPDATES:

• 20-9-08: Fix for handling double quotes was applied
• 19-9-08: Both Java and Windows version gets update for version 0.2.0, allowing you to limit conversion to certain operator only. Since mobile operators are starting testing between their customers only, Zain and Wataniya users will need first to convert only their operator numbers. This release will help you do so.
• 18-8-08: Fix for Java version 0.1.1: Java version was not working on all platforms. Some missing classes were added.

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