As reported by MLex on October 21, 2026, Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, has imposed a penalty of £437,500 on telecommunications service provider Tismi (reduced from an original fine of £625,000, reflecting a 30% discount for the company’s admission and cooperation with the investigation), Ofcom.
The period of non-compliance covered at least November 15, 2022 to January 1, 2025. After Tismi obtained large blocks of regulator-allocated numbering resources, it sub-leased (sub-allocated) approximately 366,000 numbers downstream in large volumes. However, the company failed to conduct adequate KYC due diligence and risk monitoring of its downstream customers and did not have formal written procedures for handling reports of number abuse. As a result, a large number of its numbers were used by criminals for scam calls and spam SMS messages, exposing numerous consumers to fraud risks. Ofcom had issued an instruction in June 2025 requiring Tismi to block the numbers concerned, Ofcom.
The penalty was imposed under the “Communications Act 2003” and the B1 series of the General Conditions of Entitlement applicable to providers. Operators are responsible for controlling numbers registered in their name and sub-leased to external parties, and cannot simply release numbering resources without conducting risk verification. In addition to paying the fine, Tismi must submit documentation to Ofcom covering its complete due diligence procedures, ongoing monitoring mechanisms, and abuse incident handling processes to demonstrate that subsequent compliance remediation has been properly implemented.
