In reply to a post by ian72:

I think the geographical link had become tenuous from the number itself anyway.

Within a single area (ie 01234) there are thousands of phone numbers and premises. For years you have been able to move numbers between houses within an area - so the other 6 digits have had no bearing on where you are within the geographic area.

On that basis just knowing the area code is useless for pinpointing where someone is. You need a database that links the full number with the actual location. And if you have a database that does that then what does it matter if you take the area code and the 6 digit number with you when you move out of area - the only way the emergency services are going to find you is by knowing the actual location the full number is at.

The area covered by my local area code is approximately 25Km x 25Km. That is a pretty big haystack to find a needle unless you have a location database for every full number.

That’s not really true , an example, 0164246 **** and 0164247 **** share the same STD code (01642) which is Middlesbrough , but are separate , adjacent local exchange areas , Eston Grange and Redcar , one considered a suburb of Middlesbrough and the other a very small neighbouring town , they share an exchange boundary….should an ESG customer move across the exchange boundary into RBZ area , currently a home mover request would be rejected (as stated it’s not number portability in the accepted sense if you are moving address ) ..as far as the STD code being potentially covering such a large area as to be unhelpful, in the example, a call to the police (for example) the STD code and the next few digits indicate the local exchange area so reducing significantly the area the call could have been made from , it’s not just the STD code that’s indicative of the local area but also the next 2 or 3 digits .

It’s not often any individual line is more than 10 miles from the exchange as you historically would run into operational difficulties on electromagnetic equipment like Strowger, basically the upper line length at which signalling and transmission are possible, the majority of ‘lines’ would be no more than a couple of miles long and often very much less …if your local exchange areas (not STD area ) is as large as you say then it’s likely to be rural and not really representative .

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 11-Sep-25 15:50:04)

I believe that changed when digital exchanges came in. I have moved phone numbers within an exchange area - about 3 miles from the original location. I don't have proof that you could do it anywhere within an exchange but if the address is 3 miles away from the previous address then without a geolocation database it is still useless to emergency services.

Digital exchanges made no difference to the ‘rules’ around home movers …arguably some LLU operators took a different view , and may have ignored exchange boundaries once a number was imported into their own network or were issuing numbers from their own allocated number ranges .

In the example given , an ESG 47**** customer , their physical copper pair in effect goes back to one exchange Eston if they move to Redcar the cable pair goes back Redcar a completely different exchange, the 47 number is provisioned on an ESG equipment that is impossible to ‘jumper’ to a cable pair in Redcar ….its not impossible to force the system to allocate a Redcar equipment with an Eston number , but it was never offered …basically the address would be aligned to Redcar and a therefore Redcar number would be allocated , the change to System X , System Y didn’t change that ….some LLU operators (Talk Talk for example ) may have taken a different view with the way they allocated their own MSAN resources , but AFAIR Sky for example anecdotally were resistant to home movers taking their Sky number with them when their customer was not even moving across exchange boundaries , suggesting that a new number to had be allocated for home movers in all situations

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 11-Sep-25 16:31:00)

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/docume...

Read the overview and ‘what we decided in brief’ seems pretty conclusive to me .
Presumably your juvenile ‘gravy’ remark is some sort of ‘you’ve been served’ reference…very funny if you are a teenager

Yep, ‘what we decided in brief’, includes these words: These rules permit out-of-area use of geographic numbers which we consider provides an important degree of flexibility in number use for people and businesses.

You can have custard and gravy with your pie if you like ...

Post deleted by seb

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 11-Sep-25 18:35:14)

In reply to a post by Dassa:

Hi,

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/docume...

Read the overview and ‘what we decided in brief’ seems pretty conclusive to me .
Presumably your juvenile ‘gravy’ remark is some sort of ‘you’ve been served’ reference…very funny if you are a teenager

To quote the document: "These rules permit out-of-area use of geographic numbers which we consider provides an important degree of flexibility in number use for people and businesses."

That is a pretty unambiguous statement that out of area numbering is permitted and if there was any uncertainty then, as others have pointed out, section B3.3.1 further clarifies the position that out of area codes are permitted.

I cannot see how any reasonable reading would reach a conclusion that out of area number is not permitted.

I suspect the pie you should be contemplating is of the humble variety.

Pretty categoric really. Thanks for the post.

I have two "landline" numbers from two different independent VOIP providers and neither is for my local area code. One is adjacent, the other is miles away.

Both providers required me to verify my actual address for emergency purposes.

The suggestion that it is important to have a local number is somewhat moot, gven that there are many nowadays who choose do do away with any kind of fixed-line service and rely solely on cellular (mobile) for calls - including emergency.

I wholly support the suggestion that you separate your telephone service from your ISP. Whilst "bundling" may appear to be simple, in practice it's typically more costly than using separate services; and by separating them, you can, for example, switch ISP at will - you can even use a mobile data service or satellite - and maintain your number without formality. Wherever you happen to be.

For mobiles using standard telephony the mobile will normally share the GPS location with emergency services. Not sure if VoIP clients would do the same but someone else in this thread did say people are more likely to call 999 using the phone than their VoIP.

In reference to www.gov.uk/guidance/999-and-112-the-uks-national-emergency-numbers:

Calls made using 999 or 112 are identified and prioritised by the communications providers and forwarded to, and then answered by, call handling agents in one of 7 call-handling centres. The call-handling centres are owned by BT Plc, who operate the service on behalf of all the communications providers (mobile, fixed line and broadband). An agent at one of the BT Plc call-handling centres responds with “emergency, which service?”. The geographic location of the caller, which is normally automatically available, enables the call to be transferred to the relevant geographically located emergency service control room.

Providers not only have to retain records but feed the data to the emergency call handling centre when a call is made. The primary purpose being to ensure the call is routed to the correct service. Information for calls from a mobile phone, whether using a mobile allocated number or landline allocated number via VOIP, would be provided via the protocol for mobile networks that use the mobile cell data with any data transmitted by the phone.