Number Porting Protection
New ideas to help and protect number porting
With the spread of fibre-based internet services coupled with the shutdown of traditional phone services, we expect to see a significant increase in people wanting to switch over to a Voice over IP (VoIP) service in the next few years.
As part of the switchover, most people are likely to want to keep their telephone numbers rather than replacing them with new ones. This has prompted a significant review of the existing porting process and the creation of several projects within the industry.
Looking beyond current porting arrangements, Ofcom believes that now is the time for transformation in how telephone numbers are administered, authenticated and ported. As the UK migrates to an all-IP environment, we see a compelling case to develop a strategic solution that meets consumers’ needs through a robust and trustworthy system that can resolve porting issues promptly and without the need for regulatory intervention.
- Gaucho Rasmussen - Ofcom Director, Competition Investigations &
Brian Potterill - Ofcom Director, Competition Policy
Porting projects
Blockchain
We've already mentioned the Blockchain Proof of Concept (PoC) project which intends to trial blockchain technology for managing Numbers, Porting Numbers and authenticating a Number CLI.
The Blockchain project is an Ofcom initiative which all UK Communication Providers and industry groups can participate in. Work will continue throughout 2019, and we should start seeing some result towards the end of the year. You can read more about it here
Port override
This is an interesting project; In October 2018, Ofcom put the telecom's industry on notice and wrote an open letter demanding the creation of a new process to override unlawful blocking of number porting.
Following on from Ofcom's request, the Number Port Process & Commercial Group (NPP&CG) have introduced a concept to 'override' a number port. A trial of this new process will commence this month (April 2019) and will hopefully counter the increasing volume of complaints that Ofcom receives from end users and communication providers.
We're looking forward to seeing how this trial goes and hope that it's successful enough to be rolled out as a standard process within the industry.
Porting numbers to TTNC
If you have a telephone number with another provider that you'd like to move to TTNC, then please visit our Number porting page.
We can port numbers from nearly 70 other communication providers including BT and many VoIP providers. The process takes around seven days and costs just £25 per number.
Your number stays active with your old provider until it becomes live on our network, there’s no downtime.
