Please be advised we have received the below communication from EE.
Fonix require all partners to ensure the necessary action is being taken to maintain up to date databases to ensure ongoing compliance:
It has come to our attention, through our dedicated customer care team, that recycled numbers have been billed for content services once reinstated.
With the run up to Christmas, and consumers buying new devices, EE wants to ensure that this isn't a wide reaching, or recurring issue.
Therefore please ensure you, and your clients are adhering to section 18 of the EE Code of Practice regarding database cleansing. EE advises that you carry out spot checks / an audit of your clients billable bases, and proactively clean up in the lead up to Christmas.
Any non-adherence to section 18 with be dealt with firmly by EE.
Please see below section 18 for your information:
18.1. It is the L1’s responsibility to ensure that all databases used by them and their clients are up-to-date and all permissions to use such numbers have been obtained. In addition to this, the following policies must be adhered to;
18.1.1. Recycled numbers - End User Telephone Numbers (MSISDN) of End Users relinquishing them (for example if they cancel their contract with EE) may be recycled after a period of 3 months. Therefore, if a subscriber has not been active for a period of 3 months that subscriber must be removed from databases which are used to send messages or billing requests;
18.1.2. Ported & defunct numbers – If any EE platform returns an Error Code which means that the End User is no longer an End User of EE, then this subscriber must be removed immediately from any Content Services or databases used for delivering Premium-charges via EE networks;
18.1.3. Undeliverable Messages – Partners may find that an End User’s number ceases to accept messages. EE and Virgin Mobile do have different “inactivity” policies before the number is moved to the “not an End User”. The impact of retaining undeliverable numbers in Partner’s databases is that this can lead to excessive retry queues. Therefore, EE requires that if either of the following occurs for a period of 30 days that the number is removed from any Content Services or databases;
18.1.4. The error code -Insufficient Funds (or similar) is returned on all messages;
18.1.5. A successful handset delivery report is not obtained over a 30-day period.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.