FleXtel

Last updated

Flextel Ltd
Type Private
Industry Telecommunications
Founded1992, formerly as
Goodall Personal Numbering
FounderWilliam Goodall
Headquarters Sandbach, England, UK
Products Intelligent numbers, telecom services, VoIP & mobile services, personal numbers

Flextel is a British company that pioneered the use of personal numbering in telecommunications in the United Kingdom.

Contents

Company history

In 1991 AT&T ran a trial [1] which led in 1992 to the AT&T EasyReach 700 service [2] of follow-me numbers, on area code 700 in the United States numbering plan. Stanford White – a former AT&T executive – brought this to the attention of Oftel.

Lobbying Oftel

After the Duopoly Review White Paper in 1991 [3] it was clear that there was now an opportunity for small niche players in the UK telecoms market. There followed a protracted period of lobbying of Oftel by Stanford White (of Numbering Viewed Worldwide Ltd) along with William Goodall (of Goodall Personal Numbering Ltd, renamed Flextel Ltd in 1994). Finally, in mid-1993, each company was issued with a licence by the DTI (now BERR), under section 7 of the Telecommunications Act 1984, [4] to provide telecommunications services. Together Stanford and William had effectively created the personal numbering market in the UK.

Company formation

In 1992 Flextel was formed by a team of management professionals, some of whom helped found and launch the Vodafone service. As a result of GSM roaming knowledge, Flextel was able to launch the UK's first commercial personal numbering service by December 1993, [5] piggy-backed onto the Mercury One2One GSM network on the One2One 0956 7xxxxx range. [6] Flextel was the only player in this challenging pre-market phase.

The market appears

In 1995 the UK telecoms regulator, Oftel (now Ofcom), reserved the whole of the 070 range exclusively for personal numbering, ensuring adequate number availability for the future. This move was fully supported by Flextel and, in June 1995, Flextel migrated its existing customers from 0956 7xxxxx to 070 107x xxxx numbers, the first UK personal number service in the specially designated 070 range. This was quickly followed by intense competition from a number of new personal numbering providers.

Technological developments

In 2001 Flextel was first to launch the ability to reroute a personal number using SMS. [7]

In 2002 Flextel deployed its own switches and real-time databases and gradually expanded its service proposition to non-geographic, mobile and geographic flexible telephone numbers.

After over 15 years, the market now has numerous service providers of virtual telephone numbers, each with a different package of advanced features, e.g. conference calling, fax to email, voicemail to email, area routing, time of day routing.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telecommunications in the Cook Islands</span>

Like most countries and territories in Oceania, telecommunications in the Cook Islands is limited by its isolation and low population, with only one major television broadcasting station and six radio stations. However, most residents have a main line or mobile phone. Its telecommunications are mainly provided by Telecom Cook Islands, who is currently working with O3b Networks, Ltd. for faster Internet connection.

Communications in Gibraltar comprise a wide range of telephony systems, Internet access, broadcasting and satellite control. There is also printed and online media. Regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting are the responsibility of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA), established by means of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority Act in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oftel</span> Former British regulatory body

The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) was a department in the United Kingdom government, under civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK telecommunications market. It was set up under the Telecommunications Act 1984 after privatisation of the nationalised operator BT.

Turkmenistan has a state-controlled press and monitored communication systems. Turkmenistan's telecommunications services are considered to be the least developed of all the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Overall, the telecom market in this predominantly rural country is relatively small but has been trying boldly to expand in recent years. The state-owned Turkmen Telecom has been the primary provider of public telephone, email and internet services, and through a subsidiary has been operating a GSM mobile network in competition with a private mobile operator, BCTI.

Telecommunications in the United Kingdom have evolved from the early days of the telegraph to modern broadband and mobile phone networks with Internet services.

Local number portability (LNP) for fixed lines, and full mobile number portability (FMNP) for mobile phone lines, refers to the ability of a "customer of record" of an existing fixed-line or mobile telephone number assigned by a local exchange carrier (LEC) to reassign the number to another carrier, move it to another location, or change the type of service. In most cases, there are limitations to transferability with regards to geography, service area coverage, and technology. Location Portability and Service Portability are not consistently defined or deployed in the telecommunication industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom</span>

In the United Kingdom, telephone numbers are administered by the Office of Communications (Ofcom). For this purpose, Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, which is the system for assigning telephone numbers to subscriber stations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mercury Communications</span> British telephone company

Mercury Communications was a national telephone company in the United Kingdom, formed in 1981 as a subsidiary of Cable & Wireless, to challenge the then-monopoly of British Telecom (BT). Although it proved only moderately successful at challenging BT's dominance, it led the way for new communication companies to attempt the same.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nepal Telecom</span> State owned telecommunication service provider in Nepal

Nepal Doorsanchar Company Ltd., popularly known as Nepal Telecom or NTC, is a state-owned telecommunications service provider in Nepal with 91.49% of the government share. The company was a monopoly until 2003 when the first private sector operator United Telecom Limited(UTL) started providing basic telephony services. The central office of Nepal Telecom is located at Bhadrakali Plaza, Kathmandu. It has branches, exchanges and other offices in 184 locations within the country.

The Big Number Change addressed various issues with the telephone dialling plan in the United Kingdom, during the late-1990s and early-2000s.

In India, mobile numbers on GSM, WCDMA, LTE and NR networks start with either 9, 8, 7 or 6. Each telecom circle is allowed to have multiple private operators; earlier it was two private + BSNL/MTNL, subsequently it changed to three private + BSNL/MTNL in GSM; now each telecom circle has all four operators including Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone idea ltd and BSNL/MTNL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claro (company)</span> Mexican wireless operator

Claro Company, known as Claro Mexico or simply Claro, is a Mexican company part of América Móvil, a Mexican telecom group. Claro serves clients in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. The company's name means "bright," "clear," and also "of course," in both Portuguese and Spanish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">118 118 (UK)</span> Directory enquiries provider

118 118 is the UK telephone number for a US owned directory enquiries provider. Once wildly popular for its advertising featuring two runners, the service has experienced a dramatic decline in calls due to easily accessible information via mobile devices. Calls are answered from call centres in the Philippines, with some administration in Cardiff, Wales and other management offices in London that provides telephone numbers, given subscriber name and address, and answers general questions on any subject. 118 118 started operation in December 2002. In September 2013 the company started 118118Money, a provider of unsecured personal loans.

An SMS gateway or MMS gateway allows a computer to send or receive text messages in the form of Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) transmissions between local and/or international telecommunications networks. In most cases, SMS and MMS are eventually routed to a mobile phone through a wireless carrier. SMS gateways are commonly used as a method for person-to-person to device-to-person communications. Many SMS gateways support content and media conversions from email, push, voice, and other formats.

A non-geographic number is a type of telephone number that is not linked to any specific locality. Such numbers are an alternative to the traditional 'landline' numbers that are assigned geographically using a system of location-specific area codes. Non-geographic numbers are used for various reasons, from providing flexible routing of incoming phone calls to generating revenue for paid-for services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PhONEday</span> 1995 day in which UK telephones were renumbered

PhONEday was a change to the telephone dialling plan in the United Kingdom on 16 April 1995. It changed geographic area codes and some telephone numbers. In most areas, a "1" was added to the dialling code after the initial zero. In Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, the area codes were replaced with new codes and the subscriber numbers gained an extra digit. The PhONEday changes also made provision for new ranges of subscriber numbers in those five cities. A £16m advertising campaign, and an eight-month parallel period during which both old and new codes were active, preceded the change. PhONEday followed a change made in May 1990, when the old London area code 01 was released from use, permitting all United Kingdom geographic numbers to begin with this prefix. Originally planned in 1991 to take place in 1994, in 1992 the change was postponed until the Easter Sunday bank holiday in 1995.

Personal numbering is the name for the virtual telephone number service in the UK. Typically the national destination code used for this service is (0)70. The service provides a flexible virtual telephone number able to be routed to any other number, including international mobiles. For example, the UK number +44 70 0585 0070 might route to an Inmarsat satellite phone number, allowing the user to have a UK number while roaming globally.

A virtual number, also known as direct inward dialing (DID) or access numbers, is a telephone number without a directly associated telephone line. Usually, these numbers are programmed to forward incoming calls to one of the pre-set telephone numbers, chosen by the client: fixed, mobile or VoIP. A virtual number can work like a gateway between traditional calls (PSTN) and VoIP.

Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom have a flexible structure that reflects their historical demands, starting from many independent companies through a nationalised near-monopoly, to a system that supports many different services, including cellular phones, which were not envisaged when the system was first built. Numbers evolved in a piecemeal fashion, with numbers initially allocated on an exchange-by-exchange basis for calls connected by manual operators. Subscriber numbers reflected demand in each area, with single digit telephone numbers in very rural areas and longer numbers in cities.

References