The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has today confirmed that they’ve widened the scope of their recently launched investigation into rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, which was probing their possible failure to “provide accurate and reliable caller location information to emergency organisations“ (i.e. making it more difficult for police, fire and ambulances to find callers).
Just to recap. The regulator’s rules (General Conditions A3.5 (GC A3.5) and A3.6(a) (GC A3.6(a))) require that, when someone calls 112 or 999 using a landline with a VoIP connection (like the one that Gigaclear supplies), their telecoms provider must – to the extent it is technically feasible – make accurate and reliable information about the caller’s location available to the emergency organisation handling the call, at the time it is answered.
The issue was self-reported by Gigaclear to Ofcom. This highlighted various issues with its caller location information between January 2022 and 11th March 2024, which the broadband ISP later said related to a “historic issue with the configuration of [their] VoIP service” and one that they had “swiftly fixed“.
The regulator added that, at this stage, they were “not aware of any harm to members of the public that arose as a result“, while Gigaclear echoed this and stated that all emergency calls were successfully connected. Nevertheless, Ofcom was still expected to open an investigation, which they did during early October 2024 (here).
What’s Changed with Ofcom’s Gigaclear Probe?
Ofcom has now issued an update on the case, which widens the scope of their investigation to additionally consider Gigaclear’s compliance with GC C6.4(a) and C6.6.
Ofcom’s Statement
GC C6.4(a) requires that, when providing calling line identification facilities, regulated providers must ensure, so far as technically feasible, that any calling line identification data provided with and/or associated with a call includes a valid, dialable telephone number which uniquely identifies the caller.
GC C6.6 requires that, where technically feasible, regulated providers must: take all reasonable steps to identify calls, other than calls to emergency organisations, in relation to which the calling line identification data provided is invalid, does not uniquely identify the caller, or does not contain a telephone number that is dialable; and prevent those calls from being connected to the called party, where such calls are identified.
These conditions are part of the requirements on communications providers to provide calling line identification facilities, so that call recipients can identify the person calling them and choose whether or not to accept the call.
A spokesperson for Gigaclear told ISPreview: “We have investigated the potential breach referred to in Ofcom’s most recent notification and we believe that we have complied with General Conditions C6.4(a) and C6.6 which the investigation has now been expanded to cover. We have provided the relevant technical information and assurance to Ofcom. We will of course continue to cooperate fully with Ofcom’s ongoing investigation whilst they seek to establish the facts, and as a result will not comment further at this stage.”
As we’ve said before, investigations like this often take quite a while to run their course, and today’s development will only add to that. The outcome, which we don’t anticipate seeing until later in 2025, will partly depend upon the severity and scale of the impact.
Gigaclear are not a huge provider of home phone services and their full fibre network currently covers 500,000 rural premises (RFS) in England (inc. 100,000 customers). But only some of their customers will be taking a VoIP phone solution.