No. 20.... January 1996
Issued by the Oftel Numbering Unit
50 Ludgate Hill, London, EC4M 7JJ
Enquiries - Telephone: 0171 634 8758; Fax: 0171 634 8943
Numbering Bulletins are published monthly by the Oftel Numbering Unit.
The new Telecommunications Numbering and Addressing Body (TNAB) has been formally approved by the DG as representative of those he is to consult on amendments to the Conventions. Recognition has been withdrawn from the old company, TNAB Limited, the Directors of which have been invited to commence winding up proceedings.
The membership of the new Numbering Advisory Group will be finalised during February.
The Numbering Demand Study has reached its mid-point. Coopers and Lybrand have built the econometric model and are now inputting economic, demographic and numbering data in preparation for a workshop to be held at Oftel on 7th February. Oftel has been gathering this information from the Central Statistical Office, telecoms operators and internally. The workshop will provide an opportunity for representatives of the industry and user groups to input into the study.
The DE block 90 behind the 01734 code has been released by Energis and its status in the Scheme has been changed to Designated. It will now be available to provide an extra ten CDE (90X) blocks behind the new 0118 code from 8 April.
The Network Operators Co-ordination Group - chaired by BT - has had its first meeting to discuss the network implications of the Reading code change. A further meeting is planned for 21 February. The implementation details agreed by the Group will be circulated to all operators.
The Project Team on Number Conservation has completed its work on an initial set of measures aimed at improving the efficiency of number usage by operators. Some of these measures require changes to the Numbering Conventions and these will be circulated to members of TNAB for consultation during February; further details will appear in next month's Numbering Bulletin.
Following the statement in the January 1996 Numbering Bulletin, Oftel have now received confirmation that BT's TXE4 exchanges have been upgraded to deal with four-digit Access Codes. The Access Codes which hitherto have been Protected to allow operators indirect access from these exchanges by use of an effective three-digit Code have therefore been made Free. This change is shown in the Scheme published on the Internet but is not recorded in the Tables that follow at Annex A. Operators who were directly affected by the TXE4 limitation have been informed.
The ITU Study Group 2 meeting in San Francisco in January has agreed the reservation of country code 388 for pan-European services.
Oftel has received notification of the Finnish National Code Change taking place on 11 October 1996. The Change involves the introduction of new national and international trunk dialling prefixes and a reduction in the number of area codes from 74 to 13. Details of the change have been circulated to operators. Further information is available on the Internet (http//www.thk.fi) or from Jukka Rakkolainen at the Finnish Regulatory Authority (tel: +358 0 696 6806; fax: + 358 0 696 6873).
As reported in the January 1995 Numbering Bulletin, the maximum number of digits used for international calls (excluding the international dialling prefix - '00' in the UK) is increasing from twelve to fifteen at 23:59 hrs on 31 December 1996 (Time "T").
Oftel produced a document in January 1995 outlining the importance of Time "T" and a further document will shortly be produced, primarily intended for manufacturers, suppliers and maintainers of customer premises equipment (CPE), which will indicate areas where the change may impact. It will be distributed to Approved Maintainers and known suppliers of CPE.
Although it is known that Germany will take advantage of at least part of the additional digit capacity in certain limited areas, Oftel has, as yet, received no information on the possible use by other countries. The UK has no plans to make use of this extra numbering space.
Now that full details of the Numbering Scheme are available on Oftel's Internet page and these are being updated monthly, the format of the Numbering Bulletin has been reviewed.
The publication of the Bulletin with details of all changes to the Scheme is a resource intensive task. The Bulletin will continue to be issued on a monthly basis providing information about the Review and other numbering issues but listings of new number allocations and reservations will now be issued quarterly with the Bulletin. The list of the Scheme on the Internet will continue to be updated monthly. Operators and other TNAB members who require information on disk will also receive quarterly updates of the Scheme in this form.
The next listing of all new numbering allocations and reservations will therefore appear in Bulletin Number 23 (the April issue).
Area Numbering Range
Allocations 85
Reservations 33
Other Changes 21
Mobiles Numbering Range
Allocations 2
Reservations 1
Other Changes 0
Personal Numbering Range
Allocations 0
Reservations 0
Other Changes 0
Special Services Numbering Range
Allocations 1
Reservations 0
Other Changes 0
Access Codes
Allocations 1
Reservations 0
Other Changes 1
Total Number of Changes 145