Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!umich!telecom-request From: tharr!steveh@relay.eu.net (Steve Hamley) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: UK Deregulation - Big News Message-ID: Date: 18 Mar 91 14:20:44 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 32 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 215, Message 6 of 13 In article , johns@scroff.uk (John Slater) writes: >> On a different note: what exactly are "lifetime telephone numbers"? > The idea is that you are given (or, for more money, you choose) a > phone number which you carry with you for the rest of your life, > wherever you go in the country. Nice idea, but a nightmare to > administer, I fear. And the days of looking at the STD code to > determine where a number is located are numbered. It's going to be > hard to work out what the charge will be for a given number. The announcement about 'lifetime telephone numbers' also mentioned the fact that Oftel (the regulatory body for UK telecoms) wanted to include an extra digit at the front of numbers. As I understand it from a colleague who works at BT, this is the key to how customers know how much they will be paying. The proposal is that the country is split into zones, with this prefix digit specifying the zone in which the rest of the number is currently resident. Personally, ten zones would seem to imply that the areas are going to have to be fairly large, especially if there are zones for mobile phones, toll free, premium services and international. If there are to be a number of competing telcos then it would surely also limit their charging flexibility? As for the technical feasibility, both the BT and Mercury digital networks are already capable of assigning a logical telephone number or block of numbers to any physical location. The lumbering giants will no doubt take years to decide on the marketing and how much to charge though.