Rollout of supporting NL M2M numbers as mobile in one of upcoming releases.
Aravind Penmetsa
Hi,
TL;DR Netherlands 097 "M2M" range will be supported by libphonenumber as category MOBILE.
@Background / Objective:
We are going to support NL M2M (Machine to Machine) numbers (11 digit 97X numbers) as mobile numbers based on recommendation from Netherland's numbering authority. Evidence: https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/information-about-dutch-097-numbers-non-dutch-providers.
In NL, these numbers can be SMS provisioned end points with voice capabilities, though M2M numbers are generally for communication between machines.
M2M is marked as one usage for them, but they are also marked as H2H (human-to-human), and we are receiving a lot of complaints from users because of the fact they are not recognised as valid.
@Impact on API results:
After the change, PhoneNumberUtil.isPossible() API will consider any 11 digit number as a possible phone number in NL.
PhoneNumberUtil.isValid() API does more strict validation than the above one. This returns true only when the input 11 digit number has the right prefix, i.e 97.
@Possible breakages if you already have implemented workaround for whitelisting these numbers on your own:
This feature request has been long pending because of ambiguity around M2M standardisation. In the meantime, we encouraged clients to have their own workarounds to whitelist these numbers.
If you have done so, we recommend you to watch our release notifications (in email) and release notes on Github. If they include NL M2M range support, please fix your client code against that release version.
What changed since 2016 and why is this (not) a slippery slope
In 2016, there was a lack of official guidelines about these numbers and the majority of what we knew came from user reports. Since then, official authority has explicitly stated that this range “should be made accessible, just like other, regular number series from the Netherlands” and that “you can set up a voice and SMS connection towards prefix +31-97 in the same way as you have done already with the +31-6 series.[...] you should enable your systems for voice telephony for the numbers in the +31-97 series”. This means, however, that there might be cases where the library would categorise a number as a valid mobile number, but in reality, the particular number is used as pure M2M, is not SMS or voice-enabled. There is not much we can do from our side about this, since we always follow official guidelines.
So clients should be aware that there is a possibility of false positives in the NL MOBILE category. The library will continue to not support M2M numbers in general.
Thanks & Regards,
Aravind