Auction - Backpage Briefing - Brief Article

Telecom Asia, Sept, 2003

The term "auction" has a bad reputation in telecoms circles, but some regulators can still manage to find things to sell to the highest bidder--like lucky phone numbers.

Sichuan province last month auctioned off 100 special phone numbers, raking in about 7.13 million yuan ($861,400), most of which will go to help unemployed people in Chengdu, according to Xinhua.

The prize of the lot was 8888 8888, and the lucky bidder--who now is presumably even luckier, given all those lucky eights--was Sichuan Airlines, which ponied up 2.33 million yuan ($281,500) for the number, which it will use for its 24-hour customer service hotline. Bonus: the airline gets to add a ninth eight for long-distance callers, since the area code for Chengdu is 28.