Business ISP Cloud M Faces Ofcom Slap for Number Portability Fail

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, today reports that it has found “reasonable grounds for believing” that business phone and broadband ISP Cloud M may have broken a number of their rules, specifically those that are designed to protect number (phone) portability between providers.

The case in question stems from a complaint raised by MF Telecom Services Limited, which in January 2018 resulted in Ofcom opening an investigation to establish whether or not Cloud M was providing number portability in good time and on reasonable terms. The probe also considered whether the operator was meeting its other obligations, both in terms of compensating for delays and in responding to several of Ofcom’s information requests.

Ofcom has now provisionally concluded that Cloud M may indeed have breached their rules and in “some respects continues to contravene” them.

Ofcom’s Statement

Specifically, Ofcom has reasonable grounds for believing that Cloud M:

* failed to provide Number Portability in the shortest time possible and on reasonable terms and conditions (GC18.1);

* failed to provide Portability as soon as was reasonably practicable (GC18.5);

* failed to provide reasonable compensation to the relevant customer in light of what we consider to be an abuse of porting (GC18.9); and

* failed to set out in clear, comprehensive and easily accessible form for its customer, information regarding porting compensation (GC18.10).

The company history for Cloud M is certainly quite interesting and highlights how a recent compulsory strike-off action was discontinued at the end of 2017. Meanwhile the only seemingly related website that we could uncover for the operator (here) appears to contain quite a colourful statement or two on the front page, which in part reads more like something that a disgruntled employee could have written.

One of the main statements, which is dated 10th July 2018, allegedly quotes the company CEO as saying (without much context): “I believe people in my position have a responsibility to protect new and growing enterprises from this unacceptable behaviour, from both customers and suppliers. Quite simply customers who sign contracts in good faith should not be able to port numbers away and make contracts worthless and wholesale suppliers who use their size to disregard regulations and any moral code in the sake of more profit. We will not allow this to happen, we have put together a powerful and experienced litigation team to resolve these issues quickly.“