Communications regulator fines Gateway Telecom £20k

ISP Gateway Telecom has been fined £20,000 by Ofcom after they were found to have broken regulations by “not enabling a customer to keep their telephone number when switching to another provider.”

According to Ofcom, customers have the right to be able to keep their current phone number when they switch phone companies except in situations where it’s not possible (if the customer moves to a different network or exchange are it’s not always an option to keep the same number). Details on exactly what happened with Gateway Telecom haven’t been revealed, by Ofcom have released a statement.

“We opened the investigation in May 2017 after receiving a complaint that Gateway had not responded to several number porting requests for one of its customers – a small business – who wanted to switch provider away from Gateway and keep their number.

The customer’s request was originally submitted to Gateway in June 2015. Gateway’s failures therefore left the customer unable to switch providers for over two years. The number was eventually ported in September 2017, after Ofcom stepped in and facilitated this with Gateway’s wholesale suppliers.”

This isn’t the first time that the broadband and phone provider has been on the receiving end of a fine from Ofcom. They were previously charged £150 by the regulator for failing to reply to reply to the communications watchdogs request for information.

Michael Quinn

Michael is a dedicated author helping usave to write guides, blogs and news for the last four years. When not writing articles, you can usually find him at wine tasting events or having a political debate on the night tube.

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