Vodafone Carrier Services (VCS), the Group’s international connectivity unit, signalled plans to expand into the cloud numbering services market. A Vodafone recruitment call for a Partner Buying Manager said the new role would include negotiating with external and internal partners, to help “procure services and product components for Vodafone Carrier Services and in particular the newly formed Cloud Number Business”. VCS, created as part of Vodafone’s business‑to‑business reorganisation at the start of 2013 (Vodafonewatch, #108 and #111), currently provides a portfolio of voice, network connectivity, and messaging services, and is said to manage commercial relationships with more than 1,000 communications service providers (CSP) internationally. The unit appears to be in a phase of service diversification, having also recently debuted an anti‑fraud-focused Vodafone Identity Hub platform (Vodafonewatch, #180). The exact nature of VCS’s new offering is not clear, but cloud numbering typically refers to a digital phone line that enables calls to be forwarded to any device worldwide. VCS peering partner iBasis, which was acquired from KPN Group by CSP Tofane Global in February 2019, markets a cloud numbering or international inbound service that enables enterprises to create a virtual local presence with geographically specific numbers. Vodafone UK already offers an Inbound Voice service to its enterprise and public sector customers, providing non‑geographic and virtual geographic numbers, management, and reporting tools.
