Ofcom released a statement last week in relation to the future of 070 numbers. Numbers which are commonly known as “follow-me” or “personal” numbers that are typically routed to businesses landlines or mobile phones.

Initially the prefix was set to close and migrate over to a new 06 number range however the statement last week pretty much said that the range will stay as the time and resources it would take to migrate the 070 range to a new one would greatly out weigth any benefits.

Although in recent months there have been a number of compliants and investigations into the miss-use of the prefix these have almost ALL been down to the 070 PN7 50p per call number range that bills people 50p upon connection.

I personally dont see the logic in having the per call range at all and would support heavy regulation on who is issued with these numbers. The per minute number ranges receive much less abuse and many beleive that “070 Scams” would decrease dramatically if businesses were just permitted to adopt the per minute number range.

The announcement also confirmed that the pre-call announcement that was introduced breifly in October 2007 is to be removed on ALL 070 lines due to saftey concerns.