This affects SIP2SIM customers who would previously have seen short CLI on calls to their SIM - eg where an incoming call to the SIM would have shown the short extension number of a caller on the same PABX.
Our SIP2SIM service is intended to allow a SIM in any phone or any 'dumb' phone to work as a SIP extension, either a SIP number provided by A&A or an extension on a customer's own SIP PBX. This meant that, for example, for an internal call, you would see the call from that internal extension number. This was not perfect, e.g. a call from extn 401 might show as +401, but it worked.
A change in Ofcom policy has meant that we now have to send a 'valid' looking CLI SIM. This is fine for normal calls from 'outside' your PABX as they will have the proper CLI of the caller, but customers running their own PBX may well be using short extension numbers, and 'internal' calls on the customer PBX between extensions would be sending the extension number as the CLI. eg a three digit extension number such as 402 or 403 etc.
In situations where an invalid CLI is used - eg an 'internal' call to the SIP2SIM extension, we have to now change the CLI to look like a 'valid' CLI.
Our workaround is to change the CLI to be: +11, then a number of zeros, then the original CLI requested, so +11 and 9 further digits.
eg, if you have two 'internal' extension numbers, 402 and 403. 402 is a normal SIP phone, and 403 is registered from a SIP2SIM. A call from 402 to 403 will have the CLI changed to: +11110000402
This does mean a call back to such a number would hit your PABX with this otherwise invalid number. We suggest you make your PABX map these to internal extensions if possible.
This does somewhat break the philosophy of our SIP2SIM service as a SIM being a normal SIP extension. We are not happy about this. This change is mandated by Ofcom and we have no choice.
A part of a change to BT's UK core network they are performing work that will, unfortunately, impact all our BT DSL services (ADSL, FTTC G.FAST, FTTP) in the early hours of 18th August as follows:
BT are upgrading some 21C network software in Multiple Sites. The outage to all customers will be approx 15 minutes whilst the device is rebooted. This could extend to 1 hour if roll back is required to reboot to the old code. The downtime will start some time after 01:00 We plan to be finished by 04:00 , however if we encounter additional problems, service outage could extend to 06:00
For resilience, we have separate links to BT which are provided in different datacentres and which lead back to different BT exchanges. This should mean than we can carry on working during BT planned works or core network outages, however this is not the case this time. We are disappointed that this work is seemingly needed to be done to all our links to BT at the same time.
Customers with services via TalkTalk will be unaffected by this.
To increase our capacity we are adding three additional LNS routers. These are the routers that broadband lines connect to.
New connections from this afternoon may land on these but we will be performing a 're-balance' of all lines over all our LNSs next week during the early hours of the mornings. This involves forcing connection to re-connect (PPP Kill) and so will mean a brief interruption to service from 4AM.