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Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conservation (Read 27,968 times)
Dave
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Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conservation
Dec 1st, 2009 at 1:43pm
 
Ofcom is proposing introducing "conservation" measures to all the remaining UK 0 plus four-digit area codes. The consultation runs until 11 January:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/conserve/

The proposals are that all UK five-digit area codes (including the leading zero, i.e. 01xxx) are to be given Conservation status where numbers are allocated to telephone providers in 1,000 number blocks rather than the traditional 10,000 blocks.
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:21pm by Dave »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #1 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 8:52am
 
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SilentCallsVictim
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #2 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 9:41am
 
As Ofcom continues to struggle to deal with this horrendous problem, can anyone see any relevance to the issues of concern in this forum?

There is a simple answer to the problem - re-nationalise BT, so you do not need an independent regulator to manage both a national system and a competitive market. If done properly, one body would then be in complete control and a government minister would have to take all of the blame.

(N.B. The latter comment is not a serious proposal from myself, as it would be politically totally unacceptable in a consumerist world.)
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catj
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #3 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:00am
 
When everything was done by BT, there was a clear and simple system for those places that had migrated to six-figure local numbering (from three and four digit local numbering).


The first two digits of the local NNnnnn number were assigned to one exchange (a block of 10K numbers). If more numbers were needed in that exchange, another 10K block was issued.

You could tell where a number was based by looking at the "N" digits in
(0xxx) NNnnnn
and some exchanges would use several such NNnnnn blocks.

Likewise for Director areas in cities:
(01) NNN nnnn
(0x1) NNN nnnn
the N digits showed the exchange name. A big exchange might have dozens of NNN blocks.

This was in the days before PhONEday.


Then 'cable' arrived, and BT lost control of the numbering process. It was handed to Oftel and then on to Ofcom.

In most places there was only one, occasionally two, cable companies competing with BT.

The cable companies were allocated numbers in 10K blocks, but most chose to cover a wider area than BT with one block of numbers. No longer could you be sure where a number was based.

As the market was opened further, dozens of companies applied for blocks of numbers. Each company was issued with a 10K block of numbers even if they only had a few hundred customers in that area.

So, for the fictitious area (01632) you might have originally had a number of BT exchanges with
- North being 55xxxx and 56xxxx, with a dependent exchange using 51xxxx and 52xxxx;
- East being 61xxxx, 64xxxx, 65xxxx and 67xxxx;
- South being 42xxxx and 46xxxx, with a dependent exchange using 49xxxx, and 40xxxx;
- West being 44xxxx and 45xxxx, with a dependent using 41xxxx; and
- Central being 72xxxx, 73xxxx, 75xxxx and 77xxx, with a dependent using 79xxxx and 70xxxx.

A cable company arrives and is issued 48xxxx, 58xxxx, and 78xxxx which they use anywhere and everywhere within the 01632 area.

Another provider arrives and is allocated 33xxxx, 43xxxx and 53xxxx which they also use across the whole area.

Later, the market is opened up for VoIP and other providers.

Company "A" gets 47xxxx, "B" gets "74xxxx" and so on.

BT needs more capacity in their West exchange but all the 4x blocks are in use. They are allocated 37xxxx for this.

It is getting very hard to tell 'where' within the area, a particular number might be.

More providers arrive and in short order 32xxxx, 33xxxx, 36xxxx, 39xxxx, 54xxxx, 57xxxx, 50xxxx are allocated.

In any area, there are only 79 blocks of 10K numbers available. Those beginning 0x, 1x and 99 cannot be issued.
Those beginning 0x and 1x are allocated as National Dialling Only. They cannot be dialled locally.
Those beginning 99 cannot be issued because of the risk of people ringing 999 by mistake.


A minor company will hold 10 000 numbers even though only a few dozen might be in use. With dozens of companies holding on to one or more blocks in every area of the country, everything is 'allocated' even though very little of it is 'in use'.

That's where it all went wrong. Numbers were previously allocated in 10K blocks per geographical part of a town or city. Nowadays they are issued in 10K blocks per company. This has led to a lot of wastage.

The proposal is to now issue those numbers in blocks of 1000. So for companies only using a few dozen or few hundred numbers in an area, they can immediately return 9000 unused numbers to the pot.

What will happen is that those blocks will be snapped up by yet more companies, and we'll be back to the 'everything allocated, with very little in use' situation within a few years again.
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:51am by catj »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #4 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:01am
 
You have to laugh at the telegraph article...

""Such a move, similar to London sharing 0207 and 0208 but for the regions, would make the traditional link between areas and codes a thing of the past.""


They really don't get it.



London has one code. It is 020.

For any number (020) NNNN nnnn the four 'N' digits tell you precisely which exchange it is.

(020) 7253 is Clerkenwell
(020) 7504 is Camden
(020) 7620 is Waterloo
(020) 7833 is King's Cross
(020) 8864 is Harrow
The whole of the (020) 2xxx, (020) 4xxx, (020) 5xxx, (020) 6xxx, and (020) 9xxx blocks are available for future expansion within London.


This same numbering logic would hold true if (029) eventually covered the whole of Wales.
At present  (029) 20xx and (029) 21xx are Cardiff.
Other digits would be assigned to other places.
Wales currently has 53 of the (01xxx) area codes allocated, with a maximum capacity of (53x79=) 4187 of these 10K blocks.
The (029) area code currently uses two blocks (20xx and 21xx), and has 7898 blocks free.
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 12:20pm by catj »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #5 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:09pm
 
catj wrote on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:00am:
A minor company will hold 10 000 numbers even though only a few dozen might be in use. With dozens of companies holding on to one or more blocks in every area of the country, everything is 'allocated' even though very little of it is 'in use'.

That's where it all went wrong. Numbers were previously allocated in 10K blocks per geographical part of a town or city. Nowadays they are issued in 10K blocks per company. This has led to a lot of wastage.

The proposal is to now issue those numbers in blocks of 1000. So for companies only using a few dozen or few hundred numbers in an area, they can immediately return 9000 unused numbers to the pot.

What will happen is that those blocks will be snapped up by yet more companies, and we'll be back to the 'everything allocated, with very little in use' situation within a few years again.

The "conservation" measures, this consultation and any other exercise Ofcom wishes to carry out are necessary because of one thing. That is, the fact that the issuing of numbers in the current manner is totally inefficient. It's not because there is more demand from subscribers (commonly referred to as "consumers") but because of the way in which large blocks of numbers are allocated to providers who only need a few creating unusable wastage.

Telephone numbers are a shared resource and must be managed responsibly. To cut to the chase, continue reading from the "Improving efficiency of number usage" heading below.


This sort of thing really does infuriate me. Putting "conservation measures" in place as a result of the shared resource being used up with threats of having more number changes or an extra code (overlay code) in one particular area is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted!

And then we have foolish journalists writing stories in national newspapers such as Phone change for London as 020 3 becomes third code.


I'm not too concerned about the loss of the significance of locality of the first few digits within a local number. This still holds good for single BT exchange lines. For others, including those provided in large blocks, for example, for use in offices (i.e. for DDI purposes) there often isn't any significance of where they are within a particular STD area anyway, and this includes those provided by BT.


Improving efficiency of number usage

My thoughts on improving efficiency are that there needs to be a whole new way of allocating numbers. In general terms, I see two types of communications provider with different needs:

1. The main providers such as BT, Virgin Media (ntl:Telewest), Cable & Wireless and so on who operate the bulk of the infrastructure.

2. Smaller providers, typically those operating VoIP services or selling local geographical numbers for redirection.

The first group of providers require many numbers, and in contrast, the second group require very a few.

The large providers need to be able to have allocations of numbers which are consecutive for use with large telephone systems. Those with only a small number of subscribers in an area code should only be given a small number of numbers.


Of course, this all hinges on being able to implement a solution where small providers can have a few numbers, maybe tens or hundreds. What are the technical limitations?
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:10pm by Dave »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #6 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:57pm
 
Not quite the same topic, before anyone mentions it, but thought this may be of interest

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/67037...

Others here who are far more clever than me will probably understand it.

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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:57pm by sherbert »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #7 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 2:33pm
 
The whole phone numbering system seems archaic to me. There should be one centrally-run database of all the numbers, then they can simply be issued one at a time as they are needed. None of this allocating 10,000 numbers at a time business, which is a hang-over from when numbers referred to a particular exchange. These days, you can port your number from one operator to another, so clearly having an entire block allocated to one provider isn't necessary.

I think the time has come for whole-number dialling anyway. Now mobiles are so ubiquitous, how many people dial numbers with no area code these days? Most regularly-used numbers are saved in a memory somewhere, so rarely actually need to be dialled. This would free up loads of new numbers, as local numbers starting 0 and 1 could be used. This would still allow codes to be used to identify where a number was located. It would also mean companies no longer had "national dialling only" numbers to hide their geographical alternatives to 087/084.

Isn't it funny that we are always hearing stories about the death of the landline, yet landline numbers are running out. That just shows there is serious mismanagement of the numbering system somewhere.
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #8 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 4:47pm
 
sherbert wrote on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 1:57pm:
Not quite the same topic, before anyone mentions it, but thought this may be of interest

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/67037...

Others here who are far more clever than me will probably understand it.

One does not have to be a genius to work out that liabilities have to be met from current income, reserves or borrowing. The latter are only past and future surplus income respectively. The only source of income for an honest trading company is its customers. It appears that when Openreach was split off it took its share of the pension fund liability.
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catj
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #9 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 8:40pm
 
Quote:
What are the technical limitations?


The main limitation is the number of digits that need to be dialled before a routing decision is made.

When you dial the first digit, if the digit is 2 to 9 then it is a local number, whereas a 0 says the next digits are going to be an area code, unless the next digit is another zero, then there's going to be a country code instead.

Once you have dialled the area code part of the number, the next two or three or four digits also determine some routing information within that local area.

The digits of a telephone number are referred to (without the zero trunk code) as SABCDEFGHI.
For some small part of London SABCDE is 20 7890 for a number like (020) 7890 nnnn.
For some small part of Birmingham SABCDE is 121  678 for a number like (0121) 678 nnnn.
For some small part of Bedford SABCDE is 1234  77 for a number like (01234) 77nnnn.

In the past, the final routing decision occurs at the E digit. In some SABC area codes already, and in all SABC area codes in the future that decision is going to be made at the F digit level.

That immediately makes the routing database ten times larger.

In the past, you could be sure that all (01234) 77nnnn numbers were using the same provider and were located within the same small geographical area. Now that range will be further split into ten smaller blocks, each potentially a different provider and location.

This has already happened with 08xx and 09xx numbers. With those it can be especially confusing as each small block of numbers might have a different charging structure. Dialling a number that is just one digit different might have a completely different price.
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 8:46pm by catj »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Numbering conservation
Reply #10 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 8:53pm
 
catj wrote on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:01am:
You have to laugh at the telegraph article...
They really don't get it.  London has one code. It is 020.


I think the problem started when they lost "01" and were given 071 and 081.   And it was compounded when the by-then 0171 and -0181 were migrated directly to 020 7 and 020 8.  If they'd put all the original area codes into, say, 020 2 and put all the ones allocated since the split into, say 020 3, then people would have realised what was happening.  As it is, they think 0171 went to 0207 and 0181 to 0208 and I dare say there are a lot of frustrated people still trying to dial 7 digit local numbers ,..
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #11 - Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:40pm
 
There's certainly quite a few who dial 0207 3xxx xxxx when trying to call the newer (020) 3xxx xxxx numbers.

Less than 45% of London to London calls are dialled using only the eight-figure local number.
More than 55% of London to London calls are dialled using an unnecessary 020 area code, from within the same 020 area.
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« Last Edit: Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:43pm by catj »  
 
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #12 - Dec 4th, 2009 at 10:54pm
 
catj wrote on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 11:40pm:
There's certainly quite a few who dial 0207 3xxx xxxx when trying to call the newer (020) 3xxx xxxx numbers.

Less than 45% of London to London calls are dialled using only the eight-figure local number.
More than 55% of London to London calls are dialled using an unnecessary 020 area code, from within the same 020 area.


But is that because people try to dial seven digits and when that fails dial the full 11, or is it because they simply don't know, or don't think of, dialling only the local number?

Are these figures only for landlines?
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #13 - Dec 5th, 2009 at 12:01am
 
jrawle wrote on Dec 4th, 2009 at 10:54pm:
Are these figures only for landlines?


One suspects that mobile companies do not keep records of misdialed calls! Even if they do, I doubt if they break them down according to the local geographic code equivalent to the cell from which the call was made. I am probably not alone in sometimes forgetting that one always has to dial the full number when using a mobile. Furthermore, I am probably also not alone in sometimes forgetting to omit the area code when calling local numbers on a landline when away from home.

As observed previously, Ofcom is probably to blame for making the change from 0171 and 0181 to 020 too simple. Those of us with lists of full (un-punctuated) telephone numbers were able to substitute 0207 and 0208 for 0171 and 0181, as if the one code had replaced the other. There was no extensive spending on a TV advertising campaign to explain that "inner" and "outer" London had been re-united, so as to undo the effect created when it was necessary to explain that they had been split. If Ofcom had been prepared to endure the criticism it would have undoubtedly suffered had it deliberately made that changeover less straightforward  than was necessary, and for causing the additional costs to be incurred, then the present confusion would have been avoided.
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Re: Ofcom consultation: Geographic number conserva
Reply #14 - Dec 5th, 2009 at 7:46pm
 
Yes, those figures are for landlines, because from mobiles the area code is always required.

Most of the people now calling other London numbers by dialling all eleven digits from landlines within London, have previously tried dialling the final seven digits and found that it doesn't work. They were prompted to do that after seeing most numbers formatted as 0207 xxx xxxx and 0208 xxx xxxx on TV and in newspapers, and spoken like that on the radio, for most of the last nine years. When dialling seven digits didn't work, most simply assumed that local dialling no longer works within London. There was no clue that eight-figure local dialling would work.

Some of those people simply dial the 020 area code for all calls whether using their mobile or their landline without any thought that local dialling is possible from landlines, but that surely is a minority.


The change from 0171/0181 to 020 for London occurred at about the same time that non-geographic 08xx numbers and 09xx premium rate numbers came to prominence, and mobile telephones all moved to 07xxx; all of which do not use parentheses around their 'area' codes. For whatever reason, both Ofcom and BT temporarily stopped using parentheses on geographical numbers for several years, even though parentheses were recommended. Had the parentheses not been removed, I guess that most of the 'area code problems' would never have happened. In recent years, parentheses have been re-introduced for the area codes of geographic numbers.
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« Last Edit: Dec 5th, 2009 at 8:01pm by catj »  
 
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