Posted on: 17th September 2021, by Magrathea
Welcome to the latest edition of the Magrathea Newsletter, combining news from Magrathea and around the industry.
DDOS attacks
The recent organised DDOS attacks against VoIP companies in the UK have been a source of major concern for those of us in our industry. We are very grateful to those who have been impacted so far for sharing what information they can with the wider community.
We will be continuing to monitor and enhance our own protections against such attacks and as a result you may notice some changes to the way internet traffic is routed in and out of our network. We do not expect this to have any impact our clients but should you notice any effect please do email support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk so that we can investigate immediately.
Update on surcharging
The introduction over the last couple of months of origin-based surcharging to UK mobile and UK geographic numbers has thrown up some challenges for all in the industry but these seem to have all settled now.
For more information and answers to some of the questions we have been asked most often about the introduction of surcharging, please see this document: https://mdh-dev-web-01.magrathea.net/wp-content/uploads/Guidance-for-UK-Surcharging-July-2021.pdf
We have a few options to help you manage your surchargeable calls. You can choose to:
- Block all calls where a surcharge would apply
- Block all calls where a surcharge of more than 5p per minute would apply
- Allow all calls, regardless of surcharge value
By default, all customers will have the 5p per minute cap option on their account, unless you request one of the other options.
Key points to remember:
- If you only ever send your calls with a valid UK Network Number then you don’t need to worry about this, those calls are unaffected.
- If you send calls to us with an international network CLI, from a country that appears in the surcharge list, then you will be surcharged as per our rate sheet.
- If you send calls to us with missing, invalid* or incorrectly formatted Network Number then you will be surcharged as per our rate sheet or risk calls being blocked.
*Invalid includes UK numbers that have not been assigned for service.
Comms Council UK awards
We are once again sponsoring this year’s Comms Council UK Awards and we have one ticket remaining for a guest to come and join us at the event to celebrate all the good in our industry.
The event is to be held on the 30th September at the SeaContainers, London and is always a great afternoon of informative speakers as well as a great opportunity to network. If you would like to come, please email vicki.peskett@magrathea-telecom.co.uk as soon as you can – first come first served for the spare ticket!
Numbering packages
We have had some feedback that the minimum commitment on our inbound numbering packages makes us an unviable supplier for some Communication Providers who are starting out with needing to provide numbering solutions.
It is never our intention to alienate the small acorns who are looking to grow into big oaks, but we are mindful of our obligations only to operate in the wholesale space, both in regulatory terms and so that we are never pitching ourselves to compete with our customers.
Our packages start from £180 per quarter for up to 100 numbers, with packages available on a scaled basis up to our highest tier of number pricing for customers with over 10,000 numbers.
EECC regulations
In December, Ofcom published their final statement detailing the plan for implementing the new European Electronic Communications Code. We now have clarity about which changes will be made and when and not much altered from the article we published late last year (see https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/ofcom-consultation-summary-european-electronic-communication-code/ for details).
A few small changes have already been added to the General Conditions and Numbering Plan just to reflect the end of the EU withdrawal period. However, there are a few more significant ones coming that will come into play between December 2021 and December 2022, for a copy of our updated compliance guidance please contact our support team.
One area that we know our clients are really keen to see updates on are relating to Switching and Porting and we are still waiting for an Ofcom statement on that topic, we will review and feedback as soon as we have sight of that.
Irish non-geographic numbers
A reminder that from 1st January 2022, the five Irish non-geographic ranges (1850, 1890, 076, 1800 and 0818) will be reduced to two – 1800 and 0818. Any end user who you have assigned a 076, 1850 and 1890 to, will need to make plans to switch their services to an alternative number as soon as possible.
International calls presenting in-country CLI
We are increasingly aware that many more International destinations do not allow calls that are originating outside of their country but that are presenting a local/in-country CLI.
These calls will sometimes be blocked or rejected by the far end carrier, or have a replacement network number inserted with the call passed as anonymous to the far end handset.
If you experience unexpected call failures to destinations that you know are valid, please do check to see if this circumstance could be the case. As this is usually brought in as an anti-spam measure in place from the far end, unfortunately there is typically no way to route around this but if you are in any doubt please send over the call examples and we can investigate.
Colocation space
We currently have some space available for colocation in our suite in Telehouse East, with prices starting from £340 per month for a quarter rack.
The London Telehouse East Datacentre is among the most advanced, reliable and secure IT and Communications facilities in the world, with environmental control, high availability, power redundancy up to 2N+1, fire detection and suppression and multi-layer physical security systems.
If you would like to talk about colocation, please contact our sales team on sales@magrathea-telecom.co.uk
Introducing Bridie Smith and Gary Sherwood
Our team has expanded again and we are pleased to announce that Bridie Smith has joined us to work on our Porting Desk alongside our existing team. Bridie brings with her a wealth of customer service and administrative experience and has fitted in well, already proving an asset to the team
Gary Sherwood has joined us to work as a Senior Developer. He has a great deal of expertise from previous roles within telecommunications and other industries. He has fitted in very well in with the rest of the team in the “Mag Dev Dungeon” and we are looking forward to having his help on some exciting upcoming projects.
As always here at Magrathea we appreciate your comments and feedback, if there is anything you would like to contact us about, or you would like to opt out of receiving future newsletters, please email info@magrathea-telecom.co.uk