Personal Numbering Service 070x
Personal Numbering Service numbers (UK)
A Personal Numbering Service (PNS) telephone number is a telephone number assigned to an individual or entity in the sense of global existence and location; in other words the concept is that if a caller dials that telephone number the call will be routed to that individual or entity wherever they currently are in real time. PNS numbers are provided in the UK currently with a 070 prefix. This in itself causes some confusion, since the prefix 07 category was originally allocated to mobile and pager services. Some consumers are thus confused by these numbers and assume them to be mobile or pager numbers.
PNS telephone numbers were originally a special case of Non-Geographic Number (NGN), Number Translation Service numbers (NTS) in the UK, where a caller (rather than the called subscriber) is compelled to pay for the cost of diverting (translating) a call made to wherever the called subscriber is personally located geographically in real time, and this can include translation to any of several mobile numbers, international numbers or even other NGN numbers at any time, enabling the called subscriber to answer their calls whilst traveling or whilst situated at any particular location at any time. [Non-geographic numbers in the UK include: 0845, 0844, 0870, 0871, 09 and 070 PNS number prefixes.] PNS numbers are the most expensive NTS numbers to call in the UK and can currently cost considerably more than 50p per minute, depending upon the charge scale; there are a number of different charge scales, which were originally supposed to depend upon the number translation costs, such as for the most expensive re-direction, e.g. internationally, and the highest can be as much as around ÂĢ1.50 per minute. One US telecom provider was caught out with a scheme using these numbers, and a US court suite followed 1.
When Premium revenue sharing commenced with these numbers (which it seems had never originally been intended), since the per minute call charges, and thus the revenue share, could be so high some companies saw the potential of abusing these numbers, using them as covert Premium numbers to generate significant amounts of revenue. As a result, the UK regulator at that time, Oftel, decided to prohibit (but only temporarily) revenue payments to the terminating subscriber with 070 PNS numbers. However Oftel did not prohibit intermediaries from receiving Premium revenue. As a result some cunning individuals and entities decided to register themselves (the real terminating subscriber) as an intermediary and to register a dummy terminating subscriber, so that they can continue to use 070 PNS numbers as covert Premium numbers, in effect circumventing the prohibition.
070 PNS numbers are therefore in effect Premium rate numbers sometimes known as 'personal' numbers. Since they can be easily confused with mobile numbers the cost of a call to one is not always apparent to callers until they receive their bill. Telcos are perhaps often not entirely forthcoming about the call charges for these numbers, and usually tend not to publish them clearly in their price lists.
The UK regulator, Ofcom, was looking at moving PNS numbers to the 06x range to avoid current consumer confusion. However, it has now decided for a number of reasons (including claims that these numbers are used for security and life preservation applications) for the time being not to make any change in these numbers. They will evidently therefore now remain within the 07 number category for the foreseeable future.