Posted on: 22nd March 2022, by Magrathea
Welcome to the latest edition of the Magrathea Newsletter, combining news from Magrathea and around the industry.
One Touch Switching and Porting
We have been busy looking at the latest Ofcom consultations and statements regarding One Touch Switching and have put together an article which we hope will help to ‘simplify’ the latest changes that are being proposed, please do take a look here https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/switching-and-porting-march-2022/
EU CLI Account
For some time now, some European destinations have been charging higher rates for ingressing traffic that originates outside of Europe. Each of these countries is only required by regulation to cap prices for calls originating inside the EEA, therefore many of them have chosen to set different rates for calls originating outside the EEA
Many of the networks that carry traffic to these destinations are unable to differentiate between calls originated within or outside the EEA and therefore they set their prices for the worst case scenario and we end up paying the non EEA rate for all calls. This is the reason that our prices have unfortunately looked expensive to some destinations recently on our standard tariffs.
If you are not already using our EU CLI tariff, this is a separate tariff where, if the caller IDs that you are sending on calls are European caller IDs, you will be able to call surcharged destinations for ‘within EEA’ rates – i.e. without the surcharge. This is great news as it is making us very competitive again on these destinations!
For more information including rates on this tariff, please drop the team an email at support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk and we can get you started on this tariff very quickly. The tariff uses our same high quality routes and so the only difference you will see is to the pricing.
International numbering (ITFS)
In addition to our complete range of UK and Irish numbers, we can also offer a range of International Freephone numbers. If you have customers with an International presence, or you want to offer your customers abroad a free local number to contact you on, we can help!
If you would like to see our rates or more information about these numbers, please contact our sales team on sales@magrathea-telecom.co.uk.
Introduction to our Numbering API
A quick reminder that our new series of brief video summaries which showcase our client tools and support systems is available and we would like to showcase our Numbering API – please check it out here https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/introduction-to-our-numbering-api/
Emergency Services in Ireland
In addition to access to Emergency Services in the UK, we also enable you to offer your users the ability to make emergency calls from their VoIP devices to the Emergency Services in the Republic of Ireland. We can handle both the emergency services calls themselves, as well as the submission of location information to the ECAS database. If this service is of interest to you, please contact support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk for more information and pricing.
Single Line Geo API
A quick reminder about our Single Line Porting API to help you manage the submission of your Single Line Geographic ports via API rather than manually in the Porting Portal.
The Single Line API is part of our general Client RESTAPI and can also be used via our Client Portal if you prefer a more user-friendly version for your teams. Full details can be found in our Client Portal User Guide and the RESTAPI User Guide, both available from https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/clientinfo/
If you don’t yet have access to our Client Portal please email support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk who will help you get set up. Similarly, if any of our clients would like access to the test system while integrating our API with your systems just let us know and we can give you access.
Ofcom Statement on Scam Calls and Texts
Over recent years the prevalence of nuisance calls have changed and scam calls and texts are more frequently used to try and manipulate end users. According to Ofcom, here in the UK, fraud makes up 40% of all reported crime, and the most common type is ‘impersonation’ where the end user pretends to be from somewhere like a bank or the NHS.
Ofcom plans to take a three-prong approach:
- Disrupt scams by updating rules and guidance and by supporting comms providers to do more. By blocking calls that do not have a valid UK CLI and, for internationally originated calls, Ofcom are hoping that networks will block any calls that use a UK network number when the call is not originating in the UK (as some other countries have already done);
- Collaborate and share more information between relevant parties (e.g. government, regulators, banks etc);
- Help consumers avoid scams by increasing reporting and raising awareness.
We will keep you updated and the final statement is due out in Autumn 2022.
SIP Resilience
Our SIP Resilience product is designed to be used alongside our Inbound Numbering services, to give you greater peace of mind that incoming calls will reach you in the event of issues within your own network.
It allows you to nominate a number of IP addresses for our servers to send calls to, giving greater resilience and load balancing options.
Our servers will take one IP address from the pool on a round robin basis and send the call to that server. Alternatively, you may opt to set a priority ranking on your IP addresses, in which case they will be selected in order.
Our SmartDNS system will probe each IP address several times a minute and the moment that a failure is detected it will be removed from the pool until it starts responding again. This will ensure that SIP Invites are only sent to servers that are responding.
If you would like more information on this service, please speak to our support team on support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk .
A reminder about our Restricted Tariff options
Our Restricted Tariff options offer you the ability to limit the destinations that can be dialled through your outgoing calling account. Previously, one of our support team would need to have updated your account to take advantage of one of these Restricted Tariffs, but this facility is now available in our RestAPI and Client Portal.
There are two options to limit the destinations you can dial by pence per minute on both the standard and gold route plans – you can choose either 3p per minute or 15p per minute as a restriction.
If you are not already using our Client Portal or RestAPI, or you cannot see the new feature down the left hand side of your Client Portal home screen, please contact us on support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk and we can very quickly arrange for you to have access to these tools, or to adjust your level of access so that you can use this feature.
Comms Council UK awards
We are once again sponsoring this year’s Comms Council UK Awards and the deadline for entries is 10th June 2022. The awards are open to everyone, not just members, so why not have a go? Visit here for details https://commscouncil.uk/awards/
Client Download area
Just to remind you that our Client Download page has lots of useful guidance and documents available on it including Numbering information including porting and details of ranges we have available for you to access via the API, instructions and product guides and copies of all of our handbooks please do look here https://www.magrathea-telecom.co.uk/clientinfo/
Emergency Video Relay
Many of our clients will be compelled to provide access to Emergency Video Relay from June this year, a requirement introduced as part of the EECC statement Ofcom released in 2021. Ofcom have nominated a single provider for this service and we anticipating providing access to our clients via BTWholesale who are currently finalising their pricing structure. It would be helpful to us if you could register your interest in a solution provided via us so we can get a feel for the expected demand, please contact us at support@magrathea-telecom.co.uk. More details will follow as they become available.
Introducing another two new team members
Our Porting team has expanded and we are pleased to announce that Louise Marsh has joined us the team. Louise has lots of customer service and admin experience and is very enthusiastic about taking on this new role and career with us here at Magrathea
We are also pleased to welcome another Louise to our team, Louise Goldsworthy has taken on the role of Personal Assistant to our team of Directors and so far has fitted into the role perfectly.
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