Re: [03 geographic range] Ofcom plans future of UK Telephone Numbering

Paul Cupis wrote:
> Ofcom plans future of UK Telephone Numbering
> http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2006/07/nr_20060727
>
> *******
> Ofcom will introduce new UK-wide 03 numbers from early next year. Calls
> to 03 numbers will cost the same as calls to geographic numbers, and be
> included as part of any inclusive call minutes or discount schemes for
> geographic calls. This will apply to calls from any line. No revenue
> sharing will be permitted on calls to 03 numbers.
>
> The introduction of 03 numbers will enable organisations to offer
> consumers a single national point of contact without making additional
> charges for the service. This should give consumers confidence about
> calling 03 and Ofcom expects public services and many others to view 03
> numbers as more appropriate than chargeable 08 numbers.
> *******

FYI, I have added uk.telecom.voip to this thread because area code
allocation is of interest to VoIP users.

Firstly, I think Ofcom are making a short-sighted chang of direction.
Area code structures should be simple and easily understood. I would
hold up NANP as a model that the UK and associated territories should
try to better.

The previous goal seemed to be to eventually move the UK to a numbering
system based on two digit area codes and eight digit numbers. I
thought the only provision was that this would only happen as area
codes run out of numbers. Complete conversion therefore was to be a
long way in the future.

There are insufficient codes in the "2N" range to cover the UK. To my
mind the natural overflow would be into the "3X" range. Perhaps we
could have had England, Wales and Northern Ireland using "2N" area
codes and Scotland using "3N".

Since "4N" is available, would it not have made more sense to utilize
it for nationwide dialing? And what of "5N"? This seems to be an odd
mixture of free to caller services, e.g. 0500 and unwanted VoIP 'areas'
e.g. 056.

Surely Ofcom can apply a little common sense to this process. We were
off to such a good start.

Adrian.