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Notification of possible misuse of E.164 resources

Notification No.:	1		Date:	18 May 2005

Country of residence of person notifying the potential misuse:		France
Country of residence of source of the potential misuse:		ITALY
Notifying Member State:
OR
Notifying Sector Member/Associate:		France Télécom

Code that is being misused:		88213
Type of misuse:		Code used for web dialler

Name:	Telespazio
Tel:		Fax:
E-mail:

Brief explanation of misuse or why you believe that this situation should be investigated
France Telecom would like to report that a significant and growing number of customer complaints relating to the use of web diallers were made known to our Customer Support Departments for the code 882 13. These were observed for the following number ranges: 8821313, 8821333, 8821388, between December 2004 and April 2005. Range: 8821313 Number: 882 1313 7429 Date of complaint: 07 April 2005 Range: 8821388 Number: 882 1388 8106 Date of complaint: 20 December 2004 Range: 8821388 Number: 882 1388 8106 Date of complaint: 02 January 2005 Range: 8821333 Number: 882 1333 1030 Date of complaint: 10 February 2005 A word of context: around 350 complaints a month are received from France Telecom customers related to unsolicited use of web diallers, half of which are imputable to 882 13 numbers today. These complaints lead to a number of legal actions in France, both from France Telecom in its own capacity (Saisine Procureur de Paris March 10th, 2005) and from the individual French carriers'' customers who were abused; these are currently being treated by the relevant French Authorities. The present initiative partakes of France Telecom''s continuous commitment to protecting the rights of its customers in every possible way. Because of the cost-recovery issues induced by customers being faced with unsolicited use of web diallers, France Telecom is also concerned that the scale of the current frauds and complaints on non-geographic country codes might also jeopardise the balance of settlement rates agreed between public telephony operators. France Telecom would like to point out that portions of the 882 13 code cover a wide range of satellite telecommunications services. A large number of these services provide crucial when not vital facilities to their customers (eg maritime telecommunications services), some of which suffer from the unfortunate press legitimately given to the misuses on 882 13. (See Eutelsat press release PR/35/04 December 2004 for example.) France Telecom is confident that in dealing with this important issue, proportionate and balanced measures can be taken by the ITU-T in light of the need for maintaining service continuity on these "legitimate" satellite telecommunications services while preserving the interest of its Sector Members'' customers.

Proposed or suggested corrective actions
* Suggested actions for the Assignee 1. In accordance with the principles laid out in Recommendation E.164.1 (8.1.2), France Telecom considers that it is the 882 13 assignee''s responsibility to: make sure that the present numbering misuses reported above are ceased immediately, and 2. take appropriate actions such that future misuses based on web diallers will not happen again (on the incriminated ranges or others). The 882 13 assignee must produce substantiating materials to the ITU-T of the actions taken to cover 1) and 2). In this respect, France Telecom considers that relying on third-party reporting of frauds as suggested in the notice published in the Operational Bulleting N° 827 January 2005 is inappropriate for a numbering resource assignee in contradiction of above stated E.164.1 8.1.2. In all cases, it has proved insufficient so far to address the issue. * Suggested actions for the ITU-T 1. As the responsible for global services and network code assignment under E.164 codes 881 and 882, the ITU-T should review the actions taken by the assignee to cease the current frauds on 882 13. 2. in the absence of actions or lack of results thereof, the ITU-T should recognise that for such codes where section 8.2.1.4 of E.164.1 is violated, appropriate technical measures such as call barring can be taken by carriers to protect the consumers.

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