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I'm not sure about public refs which can be cited for this, but:
I'm pretty sure the "Packet ID" name is an error on the linked glossary page. I believe it actually stands for "PIPs identifier" (but is commonly expanded as "programme identifier")
PIDs are a *minimum* of eight characters. Some systems will probably break when the first nine-character PIDs emerge, but in principle there is no limit to the length. Seeing PIDs of more than nineteen characters in the wild is unlikely to happen, however.
The authority prefix can have other characters beyond “p” or “b”. For example, partners/suppliers are assigned PIDs in the “s” range (s0000001 is the BBC itself)