Ofcom’s Renumbering Plans

Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, has published their plan for renumbering Greater London’s telephone system.

Under Section 56 of the Communications Act, Ofcom is required to publish a National Telephone Numbering Plan and review it when required. Telephone numbers have been revised three times over the last fifteen years, and usually the public’s response is one of groans and howls, followed by trips to the printers to get all the stationery redone, and the tiny tapping on phones and PDAs to input the new codes.

There’ll be none of that this time – Ofcom is assuring residential and business customers that they will not need to change their numbers. The major change is the release of the 020 3 code for new numbers in Greater London, though 020 7 and 020 8 will stay the same.

A campaign to inform the public will begin in Q3 2004, and it is expected that the new numbers will start appearing next summer.

Ofcom’s plan

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Fraser Lovatt

Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?