Investigation into Voxbone’s compliance with its obligations under the General Conditions of Entitlement (GCs)

Ofcom has today opened an investigation into Voxbone, which operates under the Bandwidth brand. The investigation concerns Voxbone’s compliance with its obligations under the General Conditions of Entitlement (GCs).

We have received information about the potential misuse of numbers allocated to Voxbone. As a result, our investigation will look into Voxbone’s compliance with its obligations under certain numbering conditions, specifically:

• GC B1.6 which states that “where Telephone Numbers have been Allocated to the Communications Provider, that provider shall secure that such Telephone Numbers are Adopted or otherwise used effectively and efficiently”;
• GC B1.8 which states that “the Communications Provider shall take all reasonably practicable steps to secure that its Customers, in using Telephone Numbers, comply (where applicable) with the provisions of [GC B1], the provisions of the National Telephone Numbering Plan and the Non-provider Numbering Condition”; and
• GC B1.9(c) which states that “The Communications Provider shall not transfer use of Telephone Numbers from the National Telephone Numbering Plan unless… (c) the Telephone Numbers are Adopted or otherwise used effectively and efficiently”.

This investigation will seek to determine the facts concerning Voxbone’s practices in relation to telephone numbers allocated to it, such as monitoring and risk-based due diligence, to establish whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that Voxbone is contravening, or has contravened, one or more of the above GCs.

We will gather further information and publish an update to our investigation in due course.