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Summary

1.1 This statement sets out Ofcom’s (the Office of Communications) decisions in relation to making additional numbers available for premium rate sexual entertainment services and additional routing codes to facilitate mobile number portability. It follows on from our consultation Supplying numbers for 09 premium rate services and codes to facilitate mobile number portability published on 11 May 2006 (“the May 2006 consultation”).

1.2 Premium rate services are offered on numbers from the 09 range, a subset of which is Sexual Entertainment Services (“ SES”). SES refers to services of a clearly sexual nature or services where the promotional material is, or implies that the service is, of a sexual nature. This specific term is used for such services as it provides consistency with the terminology used by the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (”ICSTIS”)[^(-1-)] in the application of its Code of Practice[^(-2-)]. Increased competition in the provision of premium rate services has created an increase in demand for 09 numbers. In particular this has resulted in a scarcity of numbers currently designated for SES.

1.3 The May 2006 consultation offered three options for ensuring the continued availability of numbers for SES. Our preferred option was to designate a new number range – 098. This was due to the improved transparency and large increase in number resource offered by a 2-digit range. An alternative option was to follow the established approach and open an additional 3-digit sub-range - 0919. The third option was to await the completion of the Numbering Policy Review[^(-3-)] work on revising the 09 number structure before selecting a new set of numbers for SES.

1.4 In addition, general views were sought on whether SES accessed through a telephone number charged at a geographic rate, but where the sexual entertainment content associated with that service is billed separately from the call charge (i.e. through reverse-billed Short Message Service (“SMS”) or credit card billing), should be kept within the 09 number range, allowing for selective call barring arrangements.

1.5 The May 2006 consultation also included proposals on a completely separate issue, namely making 31 additional codes available to facilitate the provision of mobile number portability. Porting codes are the means by which calls to ported numbers are routed to the correct terminating network. An increase in the number of providers with mobile numbers has generated an increase in demand for mobile number portability codes to identify recipient providers.

1.6 Ofcom received 14 submissions during the consultation period and has considered these responses in reaching the conclusions set out in this statement. Ofcom has decided to:

• designate the number range 098 for premium rate sexual entertainment services;
• to open 0982 for initial allocations;
• close the existing 0908 and 0909 SES ranges to prevent further allocation to communications providers;
• consider the issue of the most appropriate number range for adult services where the content is billed separately from the carriage of the call in a forthcoming consultation on the 09 number range structure as a whole; and
• designate codes 7603 to 7622 inclusive and 7682 to 7692 inclusive as mobile number portability codes (and protect from allocation the corresponding paging numbers).

1.7 In order to reflect the decisions set out in this statement, the National Telephone Numbering Plan (“the Plan”) and the application form for 09 numbers (“09 application form”) need to be modified. The May 2006 consultation set out the notifications of proposed modifications together with necessary legal tests to the make modifications. The final notification of modifications to the provisions of the Plan and the direction under condition 17.9 in respect of the 09 application form are in Annexes 4 and 5 of this statement. The modifications come into immediate effect on publication.

Footnotes:

1.- ICSTIS is the industry-funded regulatory body for all premium rate telecommunications services and has responsibility for regulating the provision, content, promotion and marketing of services through its Code of Practice. Website: www.icstis.org.uk

2.- http://www.icstis.org.uk/publications/cop/default.asp

3.- The Numbering Policy Review is Ofcom’s review of the long term plan for the UK’s telephone numbers. A consultation document ( 23 February 2006) and statement ( 27 July 2006) both entitled Telephone Numbering: Safeguarding the future of numbers, can be found on Ofcom’s website at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/numberingreview/.

The full document is available below

• Supplying numbers for 09 premium rate services and codes to facilitate mobile number portability [pdf]

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