Hmmm, OFCOM

Well, I think we are making progress at least. Had a conference call today. They don't even know how to format a London phone number!

I think they are happy we are trying to do the right thing and work to the spirit of general condition 4, specifically we do provide location data to emergency services, where customers provide it, for most numbers, and expect soon to be able to do for all numbers.

My gripe, and continued annoyance, is they keep saying we are not currently compliant and why is it taking so long, and so on.

Some how "make available" turns in to a much more complex requirement. All they had to say was "make available in a format and by means as agreed with the emergency services" and it would have been what they actually wanted. They say things like that in other conditions. It seems "putting on a web page" is not "making available", which is odd really.

Also, somehow, data processed by the electronic communications network becomes data available to the communications provider or some such. Well, the Comms Act is quite clear on the definition, and it is a technical one as a "transmission system" which uses signal, so I think they are quite wrong on that. There is no data in the transmission system identifying the location of the calling party terminal equipment. So we are complying with GC4, and much more.

However, seems we may make progress on location data for remaining numbers. We have several ways to tackle it. Some quicker than others. We'll see which is the most practical.

I just don't like being bullied (even by OFCOM), even more so when we are actually trying to do the right thing, as fast as our suppliers let us.