As customers may recall, some time ago we ported numbers in several exchange area codes to a company called Incoming Numbers Ltd, and then leased use of those numbers back to A&A. The effect was no technical change to operation, but it meant the numbers were technically ported to another provider. When you ordered numbers in those areas, the order form confirmed you were porting to INL. The bills showed the numbers were ported to INL. This is only a small number of area codes.
We're pleased to confirm that we have today reversed that and the ported numbers are now back with us, Andrews & Arnold Ltd. So the bill will no longer show the note about Incoming Numbers Ltd.
The reason for this was that OFCOM started charging for numbers, after having provided them for no charge, and waited for us to start using the blocks. Something that in any other "business" would be an unacceptable business practice, in my view. There was a discount for ported out numbers, hence the porting.
The plan worked, and we got the credit for ported out numbers off the bill. However, we found a much more effective solution. Most of our numbers are allocated to Andrews & Arnold (numbers) Ltd, a company which is not, itself, any more, a telco, and just leases the numbers to Andrews & Arnold Ltd to use. As it is not a telco, OFCOM do not charge it, and so problem solved.
Sorry for the puzzlement this may have caused some customers in the past. It caused me some paperwork as INL is a proper separate trading company with accounts, and everything, but not an A&A subsidiary. It will be wound up or made dormant for now.
I hope both of these methods, to avoid being charged for something we already had, have been helpful to OFCOM as they said the charging was an "experiment", and it was clearly our duty to provide the best data to them on how well it worked as an experiment.