Reason why the OUR will not allow Service provider Branding

One of the most important guiding principles of competition in a telecommunications market is that there must be fair and equitable access to numbering resources by all service providers. This means that the opportunity for service provider branding (identification) by numbers would have to be equally available to all entrants to the market.

Within the structure of North American Numbering Plan (NANP) the smallest number block that can be used to provide the desired exclusive branding of service providers contains one million numbers. Such a block would contain all telephone numbers starting with 2 or 3 or 4, through to 9.

The chief implication here is that service providers who desire exclusive identification by numbers would have to be assigned at least one million numbers, regardless of the size of their operation. Similarly, an service provider who requires one million and one numbers (1,000,001) would have to be assigned two million numbers, and so on. This would result in the immediate exhaustion of the ‘876’ area code even if, for instance, Cable & Wireless Jamaica, with the strictest application of clause (3) (g) of section 8 of the Telecommunications Act 2000, were not allowed to retain their fixed and mobile numbers as currently spread over seven of the eight assignable one-million-number blocks (these assignments, excepting the limited number in the 3XX block, were made prior to the Office assuming responsibility for Numbering).

Clearly, this kind of service provider branding would result in grossly inefficient utilization of numbering resources, and on a scale that could never find favour with the North American Numbering Plan Administrator who assigns Numbering Plan Area (NPA) Codes for the NANP.

The situation is even more critical in the North America where several measures have been instituted to provide relief from area code exhaustion. One such measure is a system telephone number pooling called Thousands-block pooling. Thousands-block pooling involves the allocation of blocks of sequential telephone numbers within the same central office code to different service providers That is, the 10,000 numbers available in the central office code are allocated, with specified conditions, to multiple service providers in blocks of 1000 numbers, instead to one particular service provider.

The OUR’s solution

To minimize the confusion of numbers, the OUR has been careful to ensure that in the shared sets of numbers, blocks of numbers, for each service provider, are assigned contiguously. For instance, in the disputed 8XX block, C&WJ is assigned central office codes 801-839 (800 and 811 are reserved Special Codes) and Digicel 840-889. In every instance of code assignment, the Office has advised the code assignee to “…arrange for the…timely industry notification, as required”. Locally this means notifying the assignee’s customers and the wider local public.

Very soon, the OUR will be publishing, on it website, the central office codes assigned to each service provider. This will follow an initial publication in the print media.

Source: www.our.org.jm