Ofcom today published their policy positioning statement entitled ‘ The Future of fixed telephone services’ a copy of which can be found here.

With just six years to go before the PSTN service in the UK becomes history, Ofcom has been looking into the implications. They seem to be a little unsure about this new technology “Voice over internet protocol” and what the benefits ,might be, but suggest that clearer phone calls might be one of them. Nothing about being able to receive multiple calls at the same time with no corresponding line rentals etc then? They also state the land lines are gradually being replaced by VoIP. This might be valid for consumers, but there are very few businesses that haven’t moved away from PSTN these days. You do get the feeling that of Ofcom are 10 years behind the market sometimes (though not always it has to be said)

One little gem towards the end of the document considers whether location significance should be preserved in geographic numbers. That would make them not geographic then! As opposed to the current non-geo numbers (08, 03’s etc) and of course mobiles. Looks like we need a new term for fixed line numbers at are not really fixed anymore and not mobiles nor non geo (whew!)

The end of local area codes may be neigh