National Number Plans and Numbering Support

Review of National Number Plans

International experience shows that, in order to promote and facilitate effective competition in the marketplace, numbers for telecommunications must be a national resource available to a broad (and representative) range of players. Although there are few absolute limits to the availability of numbers, factors such as international recommendations and the innate resistance of customers to using long numbers place a practical limit on the resource, and it is generally considered to be ‘scarce’.

For this reason, it is important that national regulators have a clear understanding of the fitness for purpose of present numbering resources before contemplating regulatory change. Factors to consider may include:

• Capacity to meet current and future demand;
• Equality of access to numbering resources for all operators;
• Present efficiency of use.

InterConnect Communications can produce an expert, up-to-date analysis of the national numbering resource by undertaking an audit of the number blocks in use by operators, the services accessed by the various number blocks, and the proportion of numbers within each number block that are actually in service with customers. The objective of this audit is to inform the regulatory body about the capacity available for service and competitive growth and enable it to manage the capacity effectively in the national interest.

Our experience includes:

• Reviewing existing numbering arrangements for a number of Middle Eastern and Gulf States regulators with a view to addressing the demand for numbers as a competitive market develops;
• Analysing an existing National Numbering Plan for a Central European regulator to identify gaps or shortfalls compared with EU requirements;
• Undertaking a review and analysis of numbering structures for short access codes, shared cost and premium rate services for a Middle Eastern regulator.