Summary

  • BEREC’s 30 October 2026 cross-border number table lists Malta’s the 40054 block under country code 356, with endings from 00000 to 99999. The listed foreign-use area is the EU and EEA outside Malta.
  • Malta’s October 2026 national allocation sheet places the 40000 through 40054 leading blocks, each with five more digits with Melita. The public tables show an allocation and a permitted range, not a count of connected devices.
  • The 40054 row is absent from the BEREC table dated 28 July. The public records examined do not identify the date of the underlying Maltese assignment or the countries where numbers are active.

The country code says Malta. The European list points across its border. BEREC records the 40054 block under country code 356 for machines and connected devices in other EU and EEA countries. Malta is left out because this is a list of foreign use; the entry does not rule on use at home. One country keeps the number record while a machine may work in another.

This is a visible change in the shared European record. BEREC’s 28 July table has no 40054 row. The 30 October version adds all endings from 00000 to 99999 and marks the range for foreign use in the EU and EEA. Those endings allow 100,000 possible numbers. The table does not say how many are active or where.

The national link is unusually clear. Malta Communications Authority’s allocation sheet, version 173 and current to October 2026, groups the 40000 through 40054 leading blocks, each with five more digits under Melita. BEREC supplies the cross-border eligibility and the exclusion of Malta; the Maltese sheet identifies the holder of the allocation group. Neither table is a live device register. The MCA’s underlying M2M numbering framework dates to 2019, so the October BEREC row must not be turned into a claim that Malta invented a new rule last week.

BEREC’s job is to put national reports about cross-border phone numbers in one place. Malta reports its ranges; BEREC publishes the European list; national authorities keep the local rules. The result helps a customer trace the origin of a foreign-coded device. It cannot answer the next questions: which country hosts 40054, which network carries it, when service began, or how many numbers are live.

That gap has an owner. Malta can show to whom it assigned the range. BEREC can show where the range is eligible for cross-border use. The host-country evidence would show where it actually operates. Until those three records meet, a +356 prefix tells a reader where to start an inquiry, not where the machine sits.

Sources