No.30 . . . January 1997
Numbering Bulletins are published by the Oftel Numbering Unit. The information may also be found on Warwick University pages: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/search/Phones/Oftel_cl.html and http://www.warwick.ac.uk/cgi-bin-Phones/nng
In January Oftel published a Statement putting in place Oftel’s policy for the third and final stage of the implementation of the UK’s National Numbering Scheme. This policy is based on responses to proposals in Oftel’s Consultative Document published in August 1996.
The Statement was drawn up with the assistance of Oftel’s Numbering Advisory Group, comprising representatives of user organisations, telephone companies and independent numbering experts. It sets out changes for five areas in the year 2000, a standard approach to be adopted for future geographic changes and a rationalisation of the Scheme for numbering of other services, which will be completed by 2001. It also confirms the extension of portability to non-geographic, mobile and personal numbering services.
In presenting the Statement, Don Cruickshank said:
The Statement puts in place a strategy for geographic numbering – after PhONEday the numbers beginning 01. Proposals for a regional numbering scheme put forward by Oftel in 1995 offered customers a solution to local numbering shortages which would not have involved changes to existing 01 numbers. However, responses to that consultation rejected this “no change” option. Oftel’s revised proposals in the August consultative document for the use of 02 for code changes in the future were strongly supported and will now be adopted as the standard approach for future changes. Five new codes will be introduced in the year 2000.
Oftel’s proposal that the 05 range should be reserved for “Corporate Numbering” gained wide support. Codes would be allocated directly to businesses and calls to these codes would be routed to the companies’ private networks for delivery. This proposal will now be subject to further study. A consultative paper on 05 will be published in June.
Currently mobile and paging services are spread across a number of codes – beginning 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 08 and 09. Oftel’s proposal to rationalise this by moving all existing numbers to the 07 range – currently used by personal numbering services – by 2001 was again widely supported particularly by customers. New 07 codes will therefore be made available for new numbers and for parallel running of existing numbers from 1997. Oftel also received strong public support for extending portability to these services and will be proceeding with this as a priority.
For specially tariffed services in the 08 range, such as freephone, local- and national- rate services, Oftel’s primary aim is to establish portability from 1997 and this policy was overwhelmingly endorsed in responses. It will transfer power to customers: allowing them to decide which operator should provide them with service. There will be a common structure for all operators to use for new numbers from July 1997:
| 080 Free | 084 Local rate | 087 National rate |
For premium rate services, Oftel proposed that a move to the new 09 range by 1999. Again this was strongly supported. Industry/user working groups are being set up to consider the substructure of 08 and 09 ranges and the migration of existing numbers.
Summary of the new Scheme:
| Range | Use |
| 01 | Geographic Numbers |
| 02 | Geographic Numbers |
| 03 | Reserved for future geographic use |
| 04 | Reserved for Future Services |
| 05 | Reserved for Corporate Numbering Range |
| 06 | Reserved for Future Services |
| 07 | Find Me Anywhere: mobile, paging and personal numbers |
| 08 | Specially Tariffed Services: freephone, shared cost |
| 09 | Premium Rate Services; reserved for multimedia services |
Oftel has published draft revisions to the Numbering Conventions. The draft sets out for consultation (as required in operators’ licences) revisions which take account of:
Copies are available from Oftel’s library (tel: 0171 634 8764; fax:: 0171 634 8946). Comments on the draft Conventions should be sent by 3 March 1997 to Elizabeth Greenberg at Oftel.
The next Numbering Bulletin, covering the period from 1 February to 31 March 1997, will be published in early April.
The majority of operators have now supplied Returns for the 1996 Audit providing utilisation information on allocated capacity and supplying forecasts of demand. These responses are currently being reviewed for completeness and the results will be fed into the Review’s analysis of demand, as well as assisting normal allocation work. Responses are still awaited from:
These responses are being pursued. In the absence of Audit Returns, it will be difficult for Oftel to make further allocations to these operators.
The block 1265 68 has been allocated in Ballymoney to CableTel, replacing an earlier allocation of 1265 62, which has been designated for a possible migration path. As there are no remaining blocks for allocation in Ballymoney (Code 012656) is a mixed area, further allocations will be dependent on the outcome of current proposals for code changes in Northern Ireland.
Following discussion in the Numbering Advisary Group, the SNS will be updated during February 1997 to identify future migration paths for 5 digit numbers. In most cases, this has resulted in a change of status from “Reserved, Withheld” to “Allocated, BT(Migration)” Queries on dates for update should be referred to BT Numbering Strategy Group, which maintains records of this detail. Current policy is to require BT to change 5 digit numbers to 6 digits where an area would otherwise prematurely run out of numbering capacity. Proposals for the future of the remaining 5 digit numbers in the UK can be found in the Consultative document on the Numbering Conventions, January 1997.
Changes made to the Scheme in the period December 1996 to January 1997 are shown in Annex 1 and summarised below.
| December | January | ||
| Area Numbering Range | Allocations | 24 | 39 |
| Reservations | 0 | 4 | |
| Other Changes | 983 | 172 | |
| Mobiles Numbering Range | Allocations | 11 | 0 |
| Reservations | 0 | 0 | |
| Other Changes | 0 | 0 | |
| Personal Numbering Range | Allocations | 1 | 0 |
| Reservations | 0 | 1 | |
| Other Changes | 0 | 0 | |
| Special Services Numbering Range | Allocations | 3 | 10 |
| Reservations | 0 | 4 | |
| Other Changes | 0 | 2 | |
| Access Codes | Allocations | 2 | 3 |
| Reservations | 0 | 1 | |
| Other Changes | 3 | 4 | |
| Total | 1024 | 239 |