Ofcom UK Urges Industry Progress on Phone Number Porting

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has written to the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA) as part of efforts to encourage the adoption of changes to improve phone number porting between providers, ideally in time for the revised launch of the One Touch Switch (OTS) migration system for broadband ISPs.

At present the OTS system, which has suffered significant delays (here) and isn’t now expected to be introduced until 14th March 2024, is primarily focused on making it quicker and easier for consumers on any broadband provider to switch ISP – regardless of the underlying physical network.

Phone number porting is also covered by the OTS system, but it doesn’t really do much in terms of tackling some of the long-standing problems with number portability itself. For example, trying to split your home number out from a broadband package (e.g. in order to put it on a VoIP line) remains a tedious nightmare (details), which can result in disconnection. Number porting also remains a somewhat slow and manual process when done separately, which can attract extra porting costs.

In fairness, Ofcom has at least managed to introduce a “Right to Port“, which requires phone operators to provide phone number porting to customers that request it for at least 30 days after the termination of a contract, unless the customer expressly agrees otherwise when ending their contract (mobile operators do this too). This makes it harder for ISPs to shun any responsibility when a number goes missing during a switch.

However, the OTA has been working with the telecoms industry to explore further improvements to number portability, which is something that Ofcom has been trying to keep aligned to the OTS system for hopefully obvious reasons. Sadly, progress on this front has been generally a bit unclear, although the regulator has just written a new Open Letter to the OTA that appears to highlight some positive developments (“express porting“).

Extract from Ofcom’s Letter on 1st Sept 2023

We understand that during the OTS implementation phase some large providers (including in consultation with the Number Porting Executive Steering Group) have worked with the OTA2 to identify and develop solutions for the interactions between OTS and number porting, and that this has led to the initial development of a proposal for an opt-in OTS-specific number porting process (or express porting) to streamline the OTS switching experience.

We understand that the objectives of OTS number porting are to simplify validation (by removing those checks that duplicate aspects of the OTS matching process) and thus offer shorter lead times and a more reliable switching and porting experience. This would also remove ‘cancel other’ which would prevent any risk of its use by losing providers to inappropriately frustrate the process.

We welcome the development of express porting, given the impact this is likely to have on the OTS switching experience and the policy objectives of a simpler and quicker switching process. We are concerned that if express porting is not adopted by communications providers, and in particular those with the greatest number of residential customers, then it may lead to residential customers experiencing a higher likelihood of porting failures or unnecessary delays when switching fixed services including their telephone number via OTS.

We would therefore now like the OTA2 to work with communications providers in scope of OTS rules, including, as appropriate, in consultation with the existing industry number porting groups, to focus wider industry effort on developing and implementing changes to number porting best practice to ensure it fully takes account of the interactions with OTS and achieves a better switching and porting experience for residential customers. We recognise this should not compromise industry’s ongoing preparations for OTS launch on the go-live date of 14 March 2024, however we expect this must happen as quickly as possible thereafter.

Put another way, Ofcom would ideally like express porting to be ready in time for OTS to go live on 14th March 2024, although they appear to recognise that this might not be realistic. But this still doesn’t really go as far as we’d like. The whole number porting system in the UK remains, much as it has done for many years, in need of a total overhaul in order to better facilitate IP based voice solutions and consumer flexibility.

Just to give an example of how tedious the current system can be. Yours truly recently sought to upgrade from FTTC to FTTP on a separate network, but I also didn’t want my home phone to be tied to a broadband provider any more. Sadly, there’s no simple way to separate the internet and phone service, while also enjoying a smooth migration.

Instead of a smooth switch, I first had to order FTTP as a new line and get that installed. Only after that could I action the number port from my old FTTC package because, due to how archaic the current system is, doing this will often automatically cancel or stop your old broadband service too. The catch is that you end up paying the cost of two fixed broadband connections for a period (necessary to avoid downtime), as well as a porting charge.

One of these days Ofcom and the industry might just recognise that, in the digital IP age, consumers expect a bit more flexibility and control over their long-established contact numbers. Similarly, it is not and never has been acceptable for ISPs to lose phone numbers during a service switch, which is an issue that we still see cropping up in complaints. Such issues cannot always be resolved, regardless of what the rules say should happen.