Inmarsat is on track to switch to the single dialling code +870 for all its services by the end of 2008.

On December 31st, under an agreement with the governing body of country codes, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Inmarsat will hand back the four ocean region codes used for its services since operations began in 1982. These codes — 871, 872, 873 and 874 — should no longer be used when calling an Inmarsat terminal from a terrestrial phone. The change affects all Inmarsat telephone services — including Inmarsat B, mini-M and Fleet — except for the new broadband services such as FleetBroadband, BGAN and SwiftBroadband and satellite phone services, which already use the +870 code.