Posted on: 2nd January 2025, by Magrathea
Happy New Year and welcome to the January newsletter, combining news from Magrathea and around the industry – the first edition for 2025!
What’s included
- Round up of 2024 (article link)
- Preparing for CLI changes – effective 15th January 2025
- Ofcom Reminder: Ban on inflation linked pricing effective 17th January 2025
- Service Spotlight: Account authentication methods
- One Touch Switching: A new porting process?
- One Touch Switching: Ofcom letter to Communication Providers
- Gaining Provider Led Business Switching
- Paying in Euros
- Events and outings
Round up of 2024
In case you missed it, our MD wrote her usual to wrap up the year and send our seasons’ greetings – you can catch up with it here.
Preparing for CLI changes – effective 15th January 2025
In preparation for the revised General Conditions coming into force later this month we will be adding enhanced CLI checks across our network on Wednesday 15th January 2025. It is vital that you start preparing now for the introduction of the additional checks.
The updated rules require us to block any calls that originate from outside the UK but have a UK presentation CLI. There are some exceptions, such as when a customer is legitimately placing calls from abroad whilst representing a UK company and our existing exception tools have been expanded to manage these use cases.
If we have identified you as having a valid exception already, our team will have contacted you to arrange for the appropriate agreement to be put in place, please be sure to engage with the team as a matter of priority to avoid your calls being blocked in error.
Ofcom Reminder: Ban on inflation linked price rises
Many providers have already implemented changes on a voluntary basis. However, from 17th January it is a requirement that all new contracts provided to residential and small business consumers no longer include inflation linked price increases to core subscriptions. Going forward, consumers who are to have mid-contract price hikes must be notified from the start what value the increase will be in pounds and pence. The full statement can be found here.
Service Spotlight: Account authentication methods
For SIP originated calls, we offer three secure ways for your traffic to be authenticated. Registration via username and password, pre-authorised IP address or digest authentication – which is a combination of the first two.
With digest authentication your username and password registration can have an IP mask applied to it, so that our servers recognise which account you are using but only allowing traffic using that username if the IP address is one that has been pre-registered.
As well as offering an additional layer of security, it will also mean that you can use the same IP for authentication on two different accounts which you could not otherwise do, for example when using a standard account and a gold account simultaneously.
We advise that clients use either IP authentication or digest authentication for greater security. If you are still using username and password alone, we recommend you review this with our team.
One Touch Switching: A new porting process?
For those of you dealing with residential end users you will already be familiar with the OTS switching process, however you may not be aware that industry is working behind the scenes to review the number portability process to try and streamline it when it results from an OTS matched switch.
Although on the surface it makes sense for number ports that have been successfully matched during the OTS process to skip further authentication during the actual port, potentially saving a lot of time on the validation stage, the industry representatives working on this have uncovered a few areas of concern. The potential for increased risk of fraudulent activity and security breaches have caused progress to falter, but we continue to engage with this OTA led work and keep our clients updated if and when there are new processes available.
Meanwhile, clients do have the capability to flag number ports within our portal as being part of the OTS process so responses can easily detect and dealt with differently if that is appropriate for you. NB. These are not handled any differently within Magrathea.
One Touch Switching: Ofcom letter to Communication Providers
On 2nd December, Ofcom published a letter to all CPs setting out their expectations as a result of a report on the success of OTS Matching. Ofcom continue to support the OTA in their work to coordinate improvements and the OTA have set out a number of recommendations. The letter concludes with a clear instruction to do better to avoid Ofcom enforcement action.
Gaining Provider Led Business Switching
The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo) is in the process of developing a solution for business transactions based on the existing OTS Hub and supporting services.
Detailed updates for all stakeholders will be published in early 2025, which will include a timeline and more information on the commercial arrangements. Please see the bulletin here for full details, including how to register your interest.
Paying invoices in Euros (€)
We always appreciate feedback from our clients, this helps us to ensure we are working on the areas you will benefit from the most. Our European clients have recently asked us for the ability to pay in Euros and have their pricing in Euros.
We’ve taken this on board and, for the first stage, we have quickly introduced an update on our Sterling invoices for these customers showing the amount to be paid in Euros, if they prefer to do that. We have a separate bank account for these payments which is clearly listed on the relevant invoice. Please note that no alternative invoice will be offered at this time.
We have further plans underway to offer Euro pricing for some services early this year, and we will be in contact directly as and when these become available to you, and of course for these services all invoicing will be in Euro.
Events and outings
December was once again a good month for getting out and about. Tracey Wright and Simon Burckhardt attended the Cavell Enable event at the start of the month which was a great opportunity to catch up with existing and potential clients whilst learning more about what the wider sector is prioritising.
A little later in the month Tracey was invited to attend the launch event for the Digital Connectivity Forum’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion working group. This took place in the House of Commons and included speakers such as Dame Melanie Dawes (CEO of Ofcom) and Chi Onwurah MP. One of the key discussions of the session was the general lack of young talent coming into the industry and this new working group will be focusing on that along with other relevant topics.
Then we had the Comms Council UK Christmas lunch, followed by the last ever ‘Tref Bash’! A lovely day was had by all of our team who attended, and we all enjoyed a good informal catchup with industry friends and colleagues.
Save the date
Comms Council UK will be hosting their inaugural Fraud Summit on 5th March 2025, this event is designed to bring together all the various stakeholders to find a way to better collaborate and in particular share knowledge to help reduce fraud. Open to non-members, book your tickets here.
What’s on our minds…
The end of December marks the halfway point of our business year so is always an ideal time for us to review how we did in the first six months and get renewed focus on our priorities for the next half.
We are currently busy testing a new product that we are creating to meet client requests. This will make it easier for you to manage traffic from your hosted tools, more on that to follow later this month.
Meanwhile if you have any specific services or features that you’ve not already told us you need, please do get in touch with our business development team (that’s Hayley, Linda or Sara), or chat to one of our support team when you get a chance. We are always happy to consider ad-hoc projects that could help you to be successful.
Once again, on behalf of the whole team here we would like to take wish you a healthy, happy and successful new year!
Kind regards
Client Support Team, Magrathea
The information contained in this guidance is for your information only and is not intended to be relied on. It does not constitute legal professional advice, nor is it a substitute for you obtaining your own legal professional advice. Magrathea accepts no liability whatsoever for any errors, omissions or statements in this guidance or for any loss which may arise from your use of this guidance.