Straight-talking, in writing

The Simwood blog.

Telecoms, AI in the call path, network engineering and the occasional strong opinion. Several times a week since 2009.

I’m back!

By Simon Woodhead Last October I posted that I was stepping down as CEO and my long-standing colleague Grahame Davies would be replacing me. Today, I…

We’ve come up with a great deal!

By Frazer Barnett TL:DR – Simwood Launches a new Dealer product. It’s been a while now since Pete, our Chief Compliance Officer, started talking abou…

How many links in your chain?

By Simon Woodhead TLDR: We’ve added even more directs so most of your UK fixed, mobile and non-geographic calls will route directly to their destinat…

CPI is just real-terms uplift, right?

by Pete Farmer Yes and no; a typical response from a telecommunications regulatory wonk like myself. Unfortunately, that answer, although wishy-washy…

And now the Germans…

by Grahame Davies Recently, we advised the Norwegians were blocking traffic presenting their telephone numbers at the international gateway, and now…

Dirty surcharges now on more British Isles calls

By Simon Woodhead If you’ve followed our previous blogs on origin surcharges, what comes next will probably not surprise you. If this is the first yo…

Massive consumer telecoms price rises

By Simon Woodhead Given the ongoing cost of living crisis, I’d like to shine the spotlight on another of this industry’s dirty little secrets. It isn…

Protecting your customers from fraud

By Simon Woodhead It has been a week or so since we updated you on our plans for blocking inbound and outbound calls according to Ofcom’s DNO list. I…

Blocking fraudulent calls

By Simon Woodhead Ofcom publishes the ‘DNO list’, a list of inbound only phone numbers from high profile organisations that should never originate ou…

The noose is already round your neck!

By Simon Woodhead In ye olde days, when punishment by hanging was a thing, life wasn’t fun but there was one positive (beyond being there to witness…

STIR/SHAKEN update

TLDR: Regulations are getting ever tighter around US termination traffic. Simwood Inc customers can expect increased levels of scrutiny and Know Your…

UK Numbering Pricing

By Simon Woodhead TLDR: All conserved and desirable 020 ranges (i.e. 020 7 and 020 8), and Conserved area codes, will now have a small set-up charge…