Ofcom changes telephone numbers again

TELCOMS WATCHDOG, Ofcom, is once again doing what it knows best - changing the UK's telephone numbers all over again. This time it's done a "fantastic" job by introducing 03 numbers.

That's according to Ofcom's own CEO, Ed Richards, who told his organisation's own publication - Ofcomwatch: "We've been amazed by the massive level of support we have had for the introduction of 03 numbers. It's been amazing. Really fantastic."

Support for 03 is not surprising really. Given that as Richards himself admits, "People didn't know what they were paying for on 0870 or 0845 or 0871."

By contrast with 03 numbers there will be an end to scams because 'revenue sharing' - where the dialed party can receive a share of what the consumer pays to make a call - will not be permitted.

Better still, Ofcom intends these requirements to apply to calls from all types of line, including mobile phones. However, this will need a change to 'General Condition 17' - whatever that is - for such a requirement to come into force.

In effect, what this all means is that anybody with an 0845, 0870 and even a dreaded 0871 number will be able to swap over and use 0345, 0370 and 0371. Crucially, they won't be able to make money out of people calling the new numbers, though.

Which is a step in the right direction. You may recall that an INQ reader was told to call an 0871 number to complain about unwanted text messages. ICSTIS, the industry enforcer, couldn't help because the standard rate for 0871 is ten pence per minute - which isn't classified as 'premium rate' until 2008.

Bizarrely, although Ofcom is doing this fantastic job, the INQ couldn't find anyone who could confirm that 03 numbers had indeed gone live as they were supposed to in March.

An Ofcom spokesperson is getting back to the INQ on that one. We didn't dare ask how much progress Ofcom is making with 070 'personal numbers' besides a vague commitment to phasing them out this year [2007].

Older readers may recall that the UK network operators were forced to renumber all mobile phone numbers so that they started with 07 so that people would be able to recognise the fact they were calling a mobile phone.

Except that 070 numbers aren't mobile phone numbers and you can get charged an arm and a leg. Worse still, of course, renumbering prevented consumers with a modicum of common sense from being able to recognise which mobile network the caller's phone was connected to.

This wasn't a perfect science - thanks to number portability you can change operators - but if you want to take advantage of a 'mates' tariff - where calls to subscribers on the same mobile network are cheaper - there's now no way to tell who's on which mobile network.

That's an issue Ofcom needs to address. Given that networks are intelligent - why can't they let you know when you're calling somebody on the same mobile network?

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