For each country, e.164 number groups – known as number ranges – are assigned to licensed telecommunications providers.
XConnect’s Number Range service provides information about the service provider allocation and intended purpose of any E.164 number. An E.164 number is up to 15 digits in length (3 digits maximum for the country code and 12 digits maximum for the subscriber’s number).
In theory, there can be one trillion numbers per country. However, in practice it is less, as groups of numbers are reserved for different purposes and service providers, hence large swathes of these ranges are unallocated.
Understanding to whom and for what purpose a number range is allocated is vital in most telecommunications applications, aids telecommunications fraud detection and underpins number validation solutions.
Fraud management for voice routing
Enable real-time detection and blocking of high cost B numbers using unallocated and ‘known high costs’ range intelligence.
Migrate away from prefix routing and remove unnecessar traffic from routing and billing systems, using simple number range validation.
Effectively manage orgin- and destination-based rating using A and B number range intelligence.
XConnect has a dedicated team of number information experts that have created proprietary techniques to ingest data from Telecommunications Authorities, the (International Telecoms Union) ITU and IR.21 data sources. XConnect’s Operations team then uses information from its own voice network and global number portability operations to verify, test and investigate identified data issues.
Access to XConnect’s Global Number Range (GNR) service can be achieved through a query interface that returns attributes associated with the range of a given number (available via webservices or enum interfaces, or through a download of the XConnect number range database).
Most number range services rely only on aggregating international number plans. However, the truth is that this alone has many significant limitations. Any reliable number range solution must overcome the lack of international standardisation, the volume of updates and the ongoing verification of data.
In 2019, XConnect developed a new number range service called Global Number Range (GNR) because many existing solutions had poor data quality, limited attribute information and no data verification.
Any number range service requires a multi-stage process that ingests national regulator data sources, supplements this data with information shared by service providers and positively verifies this data through processing communications records.
XConnect’s GNR executes this multi-stage process and provides access through a simple real-time query interface or as a data download for high volume applications.
Access information about country coverage and APIs
Get answers to questions you may have
As the immediacy of communicating through apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp becomes the norm, businesses are starting to re-think how they can engage with their customers.
A global Communications Service provider (CSP) that needed to query large amounts of data to help with accurate and efficient voice traffic routing and A2P message delivery, was looking for a cost-effective solution that would help it to avoid the additional head count, regulatory and cost challenges it would incur if it had to manage everything in house.
Two leading providers of trusted telecommunications numbering information come together to better serve a growing global need for trusted communications.
Cooper House
316 Regents Park Road
London N3 2JX
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8371 4800
Email: info@xconnect.net
