Member Article

Data Central reveals scale of data inaccuracy: 1 million telephone numbers become inactive each month

Data Central, the data validation specialist, has revealed that a staggering one million of the UK’s estimated 120 million telephone numbers become inaccurate every month; leaving thousands of customer contact lists worryingly out-of-date. The news comes as Data Central launches its flagship valTEL product – a new-to-market solution to provide the accurate and swift reporting status of any UK telephone number, both landline and mobile.

With UK adults now having an average of six telephone numbers, covering mobile and landline, business, residential and personal numbers – as well as 94% of adults either owning or using a mobile phone , accurate, effective telephone verification is imperative not only for marketing purposes, but increasingly online fraud prevention. Avoiding the use of outdated and non-compliant pinging, valTEL uses innovative technology and bespoke software to return validation results without ever placing any calls to endpoint phones.

The growth of mobile as a communication channel has also been unprecedented in recent years, with mobile advertising currently expanding year-on-year at 148% in the UK. At present, there are around 120 million landline and mobile numbers in the UK – representing a huge amount of data, especially when as many as one million per telephone numbers each month are becoming inactive.

As businesses become more digitally focussed, the importance of accurately capturing and using mobile information responsibly is becoming ever more apparent. valTEL not only helps protect against fraud prevention by verifying ecommerce transactions, but can also aid customer retention by alerting businesses to number changes from valued customers.

Steve Fenton, CEO of Data Central, said: “This product has been developed in response to a strong market need and is the only solution of its kind to offer both mobile and landline validation, setting us apart from our competitors and ensuring that we deliver the best possible data to our customers. In effect, all companies to some extent rely on invalid data because of the speed at which data now degrades and becomes invalid – it’s our job to try and provide the most accurate data available.”

valTEL is available as a single search, batch process or API service and can also operate on a cached or real time basis. Data Central processes upwards of six million updates per day – ensuring the highest possible quality of data. This allows Data Central to boast an impressive 98% accuracy rate on all data – a marked contrast to the industry standard which sees providers over supply by up to 30% to ensure that accuracy guidelines can be met.

Steve continued: “Validation of mobile and landline numbers in the past has meant actual calls being made and then abandoned, causing major concern amongst both the general population and regulatory bodies. Amendments to the Communications Act have helped regulate this activity, but the damage to public perception has already been done.

“Despite heavy fines being in place, the act still doesn’t prevent the now illegal practice of pinging completely. Our valTEL solution ensures compliance, accuracy and peace of mind for our clients, taking away the headaches that come with adhering to necessary but strict regulations.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Stephanie Dobson .