The Germany Regulation Authority for Telephony has just decided that VoIP numbers need to be assigned within area codes directly related to the address of the business/person that is using them. They also want to introduce a new area code (032) for VoIP numbers.

The full information on these new regulations can be found on their (German) website:

http://www.regtp.de/aktuelles/pm/03094/
http://www.regtp.de/reg_tele/03093/

This is a direct ruling regarding five companies that have disregarded the physical location of their customers when assigning VoIP PSTN gateway numbers to them. The ruling is said to be passed in order to ensure fair competition.

So what does this mean:

- Calling VoIP numbers will not be a local call any more?
- If the provider is offering the VoIP numbers with the help of extensions, they will have to figure to be assigned a separate number block in the new area code "032"?
- How much will the other phone companies charge to access the new area code? Will this make VoIP more expensive again, and possibly unusable - comparable to the introduction of 0700 numbers a while ago?
- VoIP providers will have to verify the addresses of their customers? Check it once a year?
- How does this compare to the companies that offer local cell phone numbers(*, for example o2/genion) in Germany?
- Will there be a boom for mail forwarding services/virtual addresses in the major cities?

These questions will have to be answered rather quickly. It doesn't really seem to make sense if you consider that most VoIP numbers in Germany are virtual numbers/extensions in a bigger system anyways, so the actual operator of the system does have an address in the corresponding area code. Why do all the users need an address there as well? For example sipgate states in their terms and conditions that they are not assigning a phone number, but only an extension.

What about forwarding a phone line to another number? Let's say I live in Cologne, but I have a phone line in Berlin, which is forwarded? How about someone who's got DSL in one of the cities where there is no VoIP offered, does this mean he cannot get VoIP at all, or only for outgoing calls?

Is this really the proper way to deal with globalization or just another interim solution?

It is also going to be interesting to see if any other countries subscribe to this point of view - to me it does not seem like an acceptable solution.

* = Normally cell phone numbers have special area codes in Germany depending on their provider. Cell phones owners in Germany are hardly ever billed by air time, but only per outgoing call instead. The caller pays extra when calling a cell phone.