http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/nts_focus/notes/nts18jan06

Meeting Notes & Actions
Agenda item (1) - Introductions
Attendance:
Andrew Wileman
Telewest (Chair)

Marcus Rudkin
Band-X

Mark Amoss
BT

Alex Cheetham
BT

Rob Day
BT

Becky Hewlett
Cable & Wireless

Helen Morgan
Cable & Wireless

Juliane Rossberg
Cable & Wireless

Justin Hornby
Cable & Wireless

Rikard Granberg
Carphone Warehouse

Toby Higho
Centrica

Harry Broomhall
Easynet

Will Goodall
Flextel

Lesa Green
Kingston

Nancy Saunders
Kingston

Anne McCardle
MCI

Debbie Mulloy
NTL

Gareth Davies
Ofcom

Geoff Brighton
Ofcom

Clive Hillier
Ofcom

Ray Copeland
Opera Telecom

Colin Scott
Thus

Mike Barford
Tiscali


Agenda (2): Update/discussion on the current live NTS/PRS related consultations (Ofcom/All)
Geoff Brighton said that Ofcom had nothing to add to the consultation documents already published, but was happy to take any questions/clarify additional points.

NTS: A Way Forward/Modifications to GC 14 for NTS & PRS
Gareth Davies said that Ofcom was in the process of analysing the responses received. Target date for publication of a final statement remained March 2006 in both cases.

Will Goodall sought clarity on the involvement of the NTS FG in the NTS : A Way Forward consultation. In particular, Will was concerned that the NTS FG had endorsed the proposals made by Ofcom in the consultation. Andrew Wileman said that the remit/TORs of the group did not permit it to make formal decisions or sanction regulatory reforms. The NTS FG is essentially a discussion group, open to any signatory of BT's Standard Interconnect Agreement, at which a broad range of issues relating to the regulation, charging and operation of the UK NTS regime can be debated. Andrew added that given the diversity of organisations represented at the NTS FG, consensus of agreement was not always achievable - and in the case of the 'Way Forward' consultation, attendees' views were noticeably polarised.

Will Goodall said that he did not believe the scope of Ofcom's stakeholder engagement was wide enough and raised concerns around the visibility of the consultation. Will suggested that number range allocatees should have been made aware of the work stream. He further confirmed that Flextel did not support the Ofcom proposals within the consultation.

Ofcom said that the consultation was taking place in the public domain and was open to representation from any party that wished to contribute. Ofcom added that it had specifically sought input from a wide range of stakeholders, including business and consumer user groups, large businesses, service providers, communications providers and various public bodies. The consultation had been communicated/publicised via Ofcom's standard distribution lists, which were similarly open to public subscription.

NTS call termination market review/NCCN 500 investigation

Gareth Davies said that a decision had not yet been reached. It is anticipated that a referral to Ofcom's board will be made in February 2006.

Agenda (3): Further discussion on the Flextel/pre-call announcement proposal
Andrew Wileman said that the intention of this agenda item was to continue the discussion from the previous meeting with attendees providing feedback on their findings around the Flextel/pre-call announcement proposal.

Nancy Saunders said that such a mechanism/arrangement would be prohibitively expensive for Kingston. Kingston has, for example, many resellers on differing tariff structures - there would therefore need to be some means of identifying the package to which a particular caller had subscribed in order to ensure the provision of correct pricing information. Colin Scott said that this pointed to a ' CLI inspection' approach which would add to the cost and complexity of any such solution.

Several other attendees expressed concern about the cost/complexity of such an arrangement.

Rikard Granberg said that he saw merit in the concept of pre-call announcements but only if the tariffing was generic. Rikard believed that the existence of multiple tariffs complicated the issue considerably.

Will Goodall referred to his mobile price comparison from the previous meeting, demonstrating a vast spread of charging permutations - the existence of which he believed confounded consumers. Will said that it did not necessarily have to be this way and highlighted the de-regulated electricity/gas markets in which he regarded tariffs as being far simpler. Will added that he believed the regulator should have mandated call price labelling when telecoms regulation was relaxed and added that he viewed the UK telecoms industry as being in danger of malfunctioning as a result of the divergence of retail prices.

Debbie Mulloy said that it is not necessarily originating CPs that are the root cause of the problem.

A number of attendees said that they accepted that tariff transparency was an issue, but that pre-call announcements were not the solution to the problem - there were other ways of improving cost transparency/educating customers.

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The chair reminded attendees that the NTS :A Way Forward consultation contained a specific question about pre-call announcements - all stakeholders had therefore been given the opportunity to make their views on the subject known to Ofcom. Attendees were also reminded that while the consultation had closed, Ofcom would still take into account further representations made to it in the time prior to any final decision being reached.

Agenda Item (4) – Update on Ofcom's impending review of Numbering Policy and possible implications for the NTS timetable (Ofcom)
Ofcom confirmed that the consultation document was earmarked for publication in February 2006 – it was not yet clear if the delay to the publication of the consultation would impact on the anticipated timetable for this initiative. Clive Hillier confirmed that Nic Green was still willing to present a summary of the consultation to the NTS Focus Group once it had been published.

Agenda Item (5) – Proposal on call termination payments under prospective new NTS regime (BT)
Mark Amoss presented a potential arrangement for the pricing of 0870 calls should Ofcom’s preferred reforms to the NTS regime be implemented. Mark said that the proposals were simply a suggestion for a possible way forward and did not, at this stage, have sign off from BT’s senior management.

On the assumption that the 0870 geographic link is restored (and 0870 is removed from the BT NTS call origination condition), Mark proposed that BT is allowed to negotiate 0870 (CP) termination rates bilaterally, and not be bound to publish the agreed charges. This would accord with the recent relaxation of regulation relating to inter-tandem transit. The carrier price list would thus not contain CP specific 0870 termination rates, although Mark noted that BT was still under an obligation to publish Single Tandem rates.

Debbie Mulloy sought clarity around exactly what would potentially be subject to negotiation. Mark said that it would be the termination rate itself, rather than the TWIX/transit element.

Mike Barford said that if BT published the Single Tandem rate, specific CP termination rates could be calculated by any other CP - thus negating the effect of not publishing the inter-tandem rates. Mark acknowledged this fact and added that while he recognised that the Single Tandem market was still not seen as competitive by Ofcom, he believed that in practice it was competitive. Mark said that in order to underpin this proposal, BT would likely seek industry/Ofcom agreement not to have to publish the rates - whether they be Single or Double Tandem transit.

Becky Hewlett asked if rates would be reciprocal. Mark said that the forthcoming NTS Call Termination Market Review would determine this – if BT is found to have market power in NTS call termination, it will have to publish the BT termination rate.

Andrew Wileman asked if the BT proposal would result in BT having to negotiate/agree rates with every terminating CP. Mark said that in effect this would be the case – there would be no generic/default arrangement.

Rikard Granberg asked if TCPs would be able to negotiate rates for non-BT originated traffic with BT. Mark said that in theory they could, but there would be billing complexities.

Mike Barford asked if inter-tandem transit charges in general would continue to be published now that the market was deemed to be competitive. Mark said that they would not.

Mark said that BT saw the fallback or alternative position as being one in which ‘standard’ geographic (reciprocity) rates would apply. He re-iterated the fact that the proposal was not official at this stage and that much depended on the final outcome of the NTS :A Way Forward Consultation. Once the final statement had been published, BT would consider putting any proposal in writing.

Attendees were asked to feed back initial comments to Mark Amoss ( mark.amoss@bt.com ).

New Action Y1: Attendees to feed back initial comments on the BT 0870 charging proposal to Mark Amoss.

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Agenda Item (6) – Review of remaining outstanding actions
Action #T/1 : Mike Barford to establish an NTS FG working group with the aim of resolving the NGNP issue:

Mike said that the issue had been impacted by the issuing of NCCN 651. Upon this NCCN becoming effective, the charging differential affecting ported calls will still exist, but the level of the differential will change. Mike sought to understand the appetite for progressing the issue. The general consensus among attendees was that the issue required resolution and that the initiative should be taken forward.

Mark Amoss noted that the differential could represent both an up and downside for CPs depending on the direction/type of traffic involved in the port. Mark also noted that the BT suggestion for future 0870 charging could complicate the issue significantly.

The action point was to be kept ongoing with an additional action for interested CPs to confirm their desire to participate in any working group to the Chair.

New Action Y2: Attendees wishing to be involved in an NTS FG working group aimed at addressing the porting differential issue to confirm their interest to the Chair.

Action #W1: All FG members to consider if the rates in the CPL should be applied only from the date the letter was signed, not the effective date on the letter (as is current practice):

Mark Amoss said that BT had received no direct input on the subject. He re-iterated the issues caused by late/outstanding OCCN signature.

Debbie Mulloy said that the issue was of particular concern to NTL as it added to the administrative workload when loading rates into the billing system.

Several attendees expressed concern that changing the procedure in such a way that the date of effect in the CPL would represent the date the letter was signed, could lead to certain CPs exploiting the situation. The general consensus was that the current arrangement should prevail. (i.e. date of effect in the CPL matches the original date of effect on the letter). The Action Point was therefore discharged.

Debbie Mulloy agreed to progress NTL ’s issue bilaterally with BT. Other CPS wishing to discuss the issue were encouraged to approach BT directly.

Action Point X1: BT to provide an indication of the impact of Ofcom’s proposed 0870 reforms on the INCA/ CLI billing regime:

The following response was received from Colin Rochester:

"Moving 0870 to geographic termination rates presumably means the cessation of originator's retention as this is only compatible with revenue share products. Therefore I would see 0870 coming out of the INCA/ CLI algorithm, either becoming BAU termination/transit/POLO akin to mobile (though with lower geographic rates) or a brand new mechanism - not INCA/ CLI origination retention."

Alex Cheetham asked attendees to bear in mind the fact that Colin’s response had not taken the proposal for potential future pricing of 0870 into consideration (tabled under agenda item 5).

Agenda item (7) – Any Other Business
Will Goodall expressed concern that the Ofcom website did not contain up to date minutes from the NTS Focus Group . Geoff Brighton said that minutes were generally uploaded as soon as they were issued in final form, but he would check the current status.

Debbie Mulloy said that NTL had not yet received the latest DEDs Transit files. Marcus Rudkin said that Band-X had also experienced difficulty. Mark Amoss said that BT had been affected by some technical issues, however the files should be available on time from February 2006 onwards.

Colin Scott said that Thus had identified additional issues with the file format. Due to a change in format, Thus had needed to implement a technical work around in order to gain access to the files. Harry Broomhall said that Easynet had identified similar issues. Mark Amoss agreed to speak to affected CPs directly.

Rikard Granberg said that the final Ofcom statement on the PRS Bad Debt Surcharge did not include any provision for reviewing the level of surcharge. Rikard asked if BT thought it appropriate to review the level of surcharge in, for example, a year’s time.

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New Action Y3: BT to confirm if it believes there should be a review of the PRS Bad Debt Surcharge level, and if so, to what time frame/frequency.

Andrew Wileman drew attendees’ attention to the publication of amendments to the BT SIA Schedules that cater for the delivery (to CPs) of PRS and PNS traffic (Schedules 313 & 314). Andrew said that updated text had been added to the latest versions of these Schedules that afforded BT greater discretion in respect of withholding payments due to CPs.

Mark Amoss said that BT was experiencing significant difficulties with fraud/arbitrage and was also in the process of introducing the new text to mobile schedules.

Mike Barford said that the issue had been highlighted to UKCTA.

Andrew Wileman said that a specific item would be included in the agenda of the next meeting if anyone wanted to discuss the issue in further detail.

Date of Next Meeting:

Thursday 2nd March 2006 – 2.00pm, Ofcom – Riverside House, London

Post meeting note: Please be aware that the May 2006 NTS FG has been moved to Wednesday 24 th May, due to a conflict of meeting rooms at Ofcom.

Summary of New and Outstanding Actions:

# T/1:
Mike Barford to establish an NTS FG working group with the aim of resolving the NGNP issue – ongoing.

# Y/1:
Attendees to feed back initial comments on the BT 0870 charging proposal to Mark Amoss.

# Y/2:
Attendees wishing to be involved in an NTS FG working group to address the porting differential issue to confirm their interest to the Chair.

# Y/3:
BT to confirm if it believes there should be a review of the PRS Bad Debt Surcharge level, and if so to what time frame/frequency.


end

idb wrote on Mar 15^th, 2006 at 2:02pm:

NTS: A Way Forward/Modifications to GC 14 for NTS & PRS Gareth Davies said that Ofcom was in the process of analysing the responses received. Target date for publication of a final statement remained March 2006 in both cases.

Yet another failure by Ofcom. I wonder what the new target date now is? Presumably Ofcom is trying to release a statement that does little damage to the NTS scamming 'industry'. I am well aware that deadlines do slip, however Ofcom has had years to sort out this problem yet seems to keep delaying the issue for as long as possible, seemingly by releasing yet more consultations relating to similar aspects. Does it believe (hope?) it will simply 'go away'?

idb wrote on Mar 15^th, 2006 at 2:02pm:

Will Goodall referred to his mobile price comparison from the previous meeting, demonstrating a vast spread of charging permutations - the existence of which he believed confounded consumers. Will said that it did not necessarily have to be this way and highlighted the de-regulated electricity/gas markets in which he regarded tariffs as being far simpler. Will added that he believed the regulator should have mandated call price labelling when telecoms regulation was relaxed and added that he viewed the UK telecoms industry as being in danger of malfunctioning as a result of the divergence of retail prices. .

Not quote sure what Will Goodall implies by the last highlighted statement but overall the views of Flextel on the total uselessness of Ofcom as a regulaor seem very sound.

Basically Ofcom says if there is any conflict between consumer protection and the interests of a major commercial scammer with friends at Ofcom then the interests of the commercial scammer always come first! :o >:( >:( >:(