Popular Local Phone Numbers: London

Regular readers might recall that we have been following the progress of the London 2012 Olympic Games with a keen interest, and with just a week to go now until the games we thought it would be fitting to use our regular to look at popular local phone numbers to talk about the host city: London.

London is the largest city in the UK, with a population of over 8 million – approximately one eighth of the UK population. Built around the River Thames, London has a history dating back over 2000 years to Roman times, and has witnessed the Black Death, the Peasants’ Revolt, the Great Fire of London and the Blitz to name but a few. Between 1831 and 1925 London had the largest population of any city in the world.

London is the world’s most visited city, with tourist attractions including the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament. It is one of the world’s leading financial centres. It also boasts 40 West End theatres, 43 universities and the world’s oldest underground railway.

This is not the first time that London has hosted the Olympic Games – it previously did so in 1908 and 1948. The area code for London is 020 – often split into 0203, 0207 and 0208 numbers. Enjoy the games!

Popular Local Phone Numbers: Bristol

We are resurrecting our “popular local phone numbers” series this week. With the Olympic Torch embarking on its nationwide tour, what better place to pick up the baton than where it has just passed, in the South West, and specifically Bristol.

Originally part of Gloucestershire, Bristol became its own county in 1373,  and now has a population of over 1 million. The city itself is the 8th largest city in the UK in terms of population and the largest in the south west. Although there is evidence of human activity in the area around 60,000 years ago, the town itself was founded around the year 1000, rapidly becoming one of the most important ports in the UK, and until the Industrial Revolution, it was one of the top four cities in the country, along with London, York and Norwich. From the 17th century, many ships sailed from Bristol as part of the slave trade. However, many discoveries of the New World also started in Bristol.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel has a strong connection with Bristol, having designed the Great Western Railway from Bristol to Paddington, the SS Great Britain and SS Great Western, and the Clifton Suspension Bridge.  Bristol boasts two universities, two football clubs, two major theatres and two railway stations. Its area code is 0117.

Vodaphone Buys Cable & Wireless for £1billion

The big news story in the telecoms this week was that Vodafone agreed to buy the once mighty Cable & Wireless Worldwide for £1.04billion. The deal would move Vodafone from fourth to second in the UK telecoms market, overtaking O2 and Everything Everywhere, and beaten only by BT.

However, it is not all plain sailing, as within hours of the deal being announced on Monday, Cable & Wireless’s biggest shareholder, Orbis Investment Management, refused to back the bid. Orbis has over 19% of the shares in Cable & Wireless, and feels that the offer of 38p per share does not reflect the true value of the company. Orbis stands to lose a great deal of money if the deal goes through.

The only other bidder, Tata Communications, withdrew the previously week having only offered 25p per share. The deal has been supported by JP Morgan Asset Management, Investec Asset Management, Cyrte Investments, RBC Global Asset Management and Sky Investment Counsel, which between them make up almost 20% of the shares.

Cable & Wireless has one of the largest fibre optic networks in the UK, allowing Vodafone to carry more mobile internet traffic at a reduced cost. They provide telecoms networks to 70% of the FTSE 100 and the NHS.

OFCOM confirms some local phone numbers will require full area code

The Daily Mail had this headline a couple of weeks ago: “The 11-digit local phone numbers: Families will have to dial full national code in radical telephone shake-up”. However, what they were reporting wasn’t really news, as it had been reported on the BBC News on 8th September last year.

The official press release from OFCOM on March 20th says: “People living in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch will soon have to dial the 01202 area code to make a local call, Ofcom confirmed today. Ofcom has proposed that this change comes into effect on 1 November 2012, subject to consultation. It is designed to safeguard the future supply of landline numbers in the Bournemouth area and avoid the need to change existing phone numbers.”

It went on to explain in that some parts of the UK, phone numbers are becoming scarce, so a small number of people will need to dial the full number when using local phone numbers to enable OFCOM to make more numbers available in these areas. Effectively, the 6 digits after the area code will be able to start with 0 or 1 once they changes come into effect.

To read the full OFCOM press release, click here. To read the Daily Mail article, which warns that many people, particularly the elderly and families, will struggle with this move, click here. To read the original BBC report, click here.

Telecoms mergers and acquisitions up as big players prepare to meet

Just read an interesting article that says that there has been a surge in merger and acquisition activity amongst telecoms operators in recent weeks, and that they has been a number of "cross border deals across international markets". It says that major deals have been reported in the last week, most notably that Vodafone and Tata Communications are bidding over $1bn for UK based Cable & Wireless Worldwide. This would be a major business transaction in anyone eyes, and we will be watching developments with a keen interest.

Other telecoms mergers and acquisitions mentioned include Turkcell considering a $1.4bn bid for Vivacom in Belgium and France, Telecom Orange spending US$2bn on a takeover of Mobinil in Egypt, Telenor of Norway increasing its stake in Vimplecom, and UAE-based Etisalat looking at making further acquisitions.

The report also mentions that many of the global telecoms operators, leading executives and key players in the telecoms world are to meet with investment bankers in London on March 14th at the TMT (Telecoms, Media & Technology) M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions) forum on 14th March in London, to discuss future deals and transactions. Shockingly, we haven't been invited, but Goldman Sachs, UBS, Citi, Clifford Chance, Silicon Valley Bank and Tata Communications will be among the major companies speaking at the event. We'll keep you posted.

Popular Local Phone Numbers: Liverpool

This week the local phone number blog is continuing its profile of areas with popular virtual local phone numbers by looking at a city with a proud and great history and heritage. Liverpool is a major port and city on Merseyside in the north west of England in the UK.

Liverpool was founded in 1207, and celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007. However, it took many centuries to grow into the major city that it is today, as 300 years later the population of Liverpool was only around 500 people. Liverpool grew dramatically as the result of it being a major port, so that by the 19th century, an incredible 40% of the world's trade passed through Liverpool's port.

In 1830 the first inter-city railway link was built connecting Liverpool and Manchester, and the population grew dramatically in the 1840s as many Irish migrants fled the potato famine and headed to the west coast of England. By 1851, 25% of the population of Liverpool was Irish born.

Liverpool finally became a city in 1880. Liverpool's strategic importance meant its bombing was only second to London's during World War II. Tourism is vital to Liverpool, with the city being the 6th most visited in the UK. The Albert Docks, the Liver birds, the cathedral and the tudor houses are among many notable landmarks. It is of course also famous for being the home of The Beatles as well as many other music legends, and for a host of reasons was the European Capital of Culture in 2008.

It has a strong and growing knowledge economy, and is home to three universities. It is of course also home to two Premier League football clubs, Liverpool at Anfield and Everton at Goodison Park.

The local phone number for Liverpool is the 0151 phone number.

Local phone number providers go international

We've noticed that leading providers of virtual local phone numbers are now starting to go international more frequently. Virtual local phone numbers allow companies to have a telephone presence in towns and cities that they don't have a physical presence in, but now businesses are going one step further by getting a telephone presence in countries that they don't have a physical presence in! International toll free numbers seem to be a hugely popular option at the moment for companies wanting to do businesses overseas but not wanting to make that huge leap at the moment of getting staff and properties overseas. For people with an interest in telecoms, it is an interesting development.