UK telecom regulator to trial blockchain for management of telephone numbers

The Office of Communications (Ofcom), a UK government-approved telecom regulatory and competition authority, has announced that it has received £700k from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to look into the potential of blockchain technology.

In its official release, Ofcom said that it will use the funding to develop a blockchain solution to improve how UK telephone numbers are managed.

Ofcom currently issues blocks of telephone numbers (approximately 1 billion) to telecoms operators, who manage the numbers and movement (porting) of them into and out of their control. It said that blockchain technology will enable it to “create trusted transactions (consumer porting) between parties and manage the lifecycle of a telephone number transforming data to support voice call routing and ownership.”

“Between now and April 2020, we’ll be inviting industry participants to trial the porting and management of millions of telephone numbers using blockchain and ledger technology. We’ll be co-ordinating this work across industry, universities and other third-party providers,” it said.

The project will involve moving the telecommunication networks from traditional analogue telephone lines to an all-IP (internet protocol) infrastructure. Ofcom said that moving to blockchain could help improve customer experience when moving a number between providers; lower regulatory and business costs; increase industry agility, and improve the management of nuisance calls and fraud. In addition, users will be able to see the updates in real-time.

“We will be working with industry to explore how blockchain could make it quicker and easier for landline customers to switch providers while keeping their number – as well as reducing nuisance calls. And we’ll expand our research into other areas where innovative technologies such as blockchain could be applied to benefit consumers,” Mansoor Hanif, Ofcom Chief Technology Officer, said.