http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/nts_focus/notes/nts25102007

20|12|07

NTS Focus Group – 25th October 2007 – 2.15 pm Ofcom
NTS Focus Group – 25th October 2007 – 2.15 pm Ofcom
Agenda item (1) - Introductions
Attendance:
Kath Embleton (KH)
BT

Sean Hartley (SH)
BT

Rob Day (RD)
BT

Laurent Pariat (LP)
C&W (Chair – standing-in for J.Hornby)

Christine Roberts (CR)
Colt

Richard Anderson
Colt

Andrew Monk
CPW

Toby Higho (TH)
Easynet / Sky

Ray Nixon
Flextel

Will Goodall (WG)
Flextel

Becky Mortimore
Gamma

IVResponse

Lesa Green (LG)
Kcom

Nancy Saunders (NS)
Kcom

Geoff Brighton (GB)
Ofcom

Clive Hillier (CH)
Ofcom

Vahini Sangarapillai
Ofcom

John Lockyer
Teamphone

Mike Barford
Tiscali

Dave Franks
Verizon

Andrew Wileman (AW)
Virgin Media

Sandra Reid
Virgin Media

...

...

Agenda Item (2) - Review of minutes of previous meeting
Comments received from Ofcom and D.Jennings (Reality Telecom) were incorporated and circulated prior to the meeting.

AW: AP Jun07_03 was mistakenly removed from the minutes

WG: 1 AP not picked from discussions with ICSTIS = difference between chat and conferencing

Action Oct07_01: LP to update minutes before publication on the Ofcom website.

Agenda Item (3) - Update/progress report on the current 'live' NTS related consultations/investigations: (Ofcom/All)
Review of Regulation of Premium Rate Services
CH advised that the consultation was in the process of being drafted and should be released before the end of the year.

CR asked if details of the research would appear in the consultation. CH confirmed.

NCCN 500 investigation/NTS call termination market review
CH said that the last comments following the deadline extension had been received and were to be reviewed in November.

Market Review is still delayed pending conclusion of NCCN 500 investigation.

ICSTIS progress re governance of 0871
CH said the ICSTIS statement is expected next week (29Oct-02Nov) and Ofcom hoped to issue a consultation before the end of the year. Taking into account the time to respond, review the responses and the ICSTIS implementation timescales following Ofcom statement (3 months), full implementation should not be expected until summer 2008.

General Condition 14 Enforcement Programme
CH stated that the case was being considered by the investigation team. However there are some resource issues

...

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0870 NTS condition removal
GB stated that issues identified with pre-call announcements were being researched. As a result the consultation on the implementation of the changes to 0870 will be delayed. The consultation will also seek comments on the impact of the issues involving announcements and the means by which these will be addressed.

NS highlighted that this would cause serious operational issues. WG said it was a trade-off for health and safety versus operational issues.

NS asked how this would be communicated. CH responded that Ofcom’s communications office had been informed and also that the ICSTIS statement would refer to the timing of the extension of PhonepayPlus rules to 0871.

LG asked if we could get a better view of the extent of the slippage. GB said it was not possible to tell at this point given that Ofcom needed to understand the extent of the issues and how to overcome them and include the matter in the forthcoming consultation.

RD asked what the consultation was now going to cover. GB explained that it would cover possible alternatives to pre-call announcement, in addition to the consultation on the NTS condition.

AM said that precise dates were needed. GB said that these would be included in the consultation is as far as it is possible to do so.

AW asked if Ofcom would make a formal statement. GB that this could be taken as a formal announcement that changes to 0870 and 0871 would be postponed past February 08.

KH asked if other potential issues had been identified which CPs should be aware of. GB said that to his knowledge there weren’t.

TH asked what the timescale for consultation would be. CH said that Ofcom was about to revise its standard consultation period to 6 weeks, though an extra two weeks would be added if the consultation spanned the Christmas period. . Processing time will depend on responses.

WG stated that it was clear under ITU recommendations that pre-call announcements were not allowed and asked Ofcom to formally request CPs to turn-off announcements on 070.

WG stated that on the basis of the evidence available and ITU recommendation Ofcom should acknowledge its responsibility and take action on 070 without further delay. GB said WG’s comments would be fed back to the 070 policy team and that Ofcom had already asked communications providers to remove announcements from the 070 ranges where problems had been encountered. Whether this would be extended to the remainder of the 070 range was being considered.

KE noted that some CPs had invested in pre-call announcement and may look to recover their costs. GB said that this too would be relayed to the policy team.

SH said that BT were incurring significant costs running pre-call announcements on 070 calls and needed certainty sooner rather than later.

Agenda Item (4) - Implementation of 03 range (Ofcom/All)
CH stated on behalf of Nic Green that one government department had started using 03 numbers and others were to start in the coming weeks. Ofcom hoped to start using 03 in November.

LG to confirmed that 03 porting was on the agenda for the next Porting Commercial group (17 th November 07).

AW related that BT had recently refused Virgin Media the higher rate for 03 calls collected at DLEs before retracting. AW asked if this was merely an error or if BT were planning to withdraw the marked-up DLE rate. RD responded that he was not aware of this incident but believed there was no plan to withdraw the DLE rate.

Agenda Item (5) - International Access to 0844/0871 ranges (BT/All)
LP asked for progress updates from present CPs.

SH explained that negotiations were ongoing with overseas operators on bi-lateral basis and that international access would be opened once these were completed, with the caveat that there would be no single drop charges (ppc), only pence per minute.

RD asked what the status was on the C&W network. LP responded that international access had been opened, as stated at the last meeting.

No update from other CPs.

...

...

Agenda Item (6) - 070 pre-call announcement duration
The issues were discussed at length under agenda item (3) (0870 above).

WG remarked that UKCTA had already warned Ofcom about the risks associated with pre-call announcement in early 2005.

WG then called for Ofcom to request the immediate removal of call announcements on 070 within the next 48 hours, based on the known health and safety risks and lack of compliance with international obligations (ITU and EU Regulations).

KH asked for confirmation that no penalty would be applied to BT for removing call announcement. CH confirmed this to be the case as Ofcom had requested BT to remove them.

WG also pointed out that CPs themselves were liable for H&S risks and for compliance with international regulations and therefore called for all CPs to remove these announcements unilaterally, in the event that Ofcom did not respond in a timely manner.

KH asked why this was generally an issue for mobiles. It seems that calls are unlikely to be made from mobiles to modems.

Agenda Item (7) – Review of outstanding action points
Aug06_09 (not discussed – ongoing)

May07_03 (not discussed – ongoing)

Jun07_03 (not discussed – ongoing)

Sep07_01 (not discussed – ongoing)

Sep07_02 CH responded on behalf of ICSTIS that levy calculations would be covered

in the ICSTIS statement. LG questioned the research carried out by ICSTIS to set out the levy. WG said in the absence of revenue share (benefits in kind) there is no need for ICSTIS regulation and therefore there should be no levy. CH explained that benefits in kind had to be considered as well. WG questioned the consistency of the policy e.g. current mobile practices.

NS asked for the AP to remain on the agenda for the next meeting – ongoing

Sep07_03 CH responded on behalf of ICSTIS that responses were to be made available soon - ongoing

Sep07_04 JH to update minutes before publication on the Ofcom website – Discharged.

Minutes available on the website.

Sep07_05 All international carriers to confirm their plans for making international access available for 0844 and 0871 – Ongoing, see point (5) above

Agenda (8) – Any Other Business
LG asked about plans to review 0845. CH responded that Ofcom would look into it once changes to 0870 were completed.
LG then asked whether there would also be a review of service designations for 08 services, as indicated in previous Ofcom NTS and Numbering Statements.
GB confirmed that there were plans to tidy those up .
NS asked whether it would take place as part of the General Conditions review.
TH remarked that the plan was to review consumers conditions, not numbering ones .
CH said it would be confirmed at the next meeting.
Ofcom asked if participants agreed to have the next meeting brought forward 1 week to 29 th November. There was no objection.
Proposed dates for meetings in 2008 have been issued and rooms booked by Ofcom:
Jan 10th

Feb 21st

Apr 3rd

May 15th

Jun 26th

Jul 31st

Sep 11th

Oct 23rd

Nov 27th

Date of Next Meeting:

The meeting next meeting will take place on Thursday 29 th November 2007 (instead of 6 th December), commencing at 2pm , at Riverside House, London .

...

...

Summary of New and Outstanding Actions:

Aug06_09
Porting differential issue to be added to the agenda of the first NTSFG meeting of 2007

May07_03
Justin Hornby to hold discussions with the chair of the Mobile Broadband Group with a view to gaining input to NTS debates from the mobile community (to include the prospect of MNO attendance at the NSTFG, or NTSFG member attendance at the Mobile Broadband Group.)

Jun07_03
BT to clarify the charging arrangements for the termination of 03 calls (and, post 1 st Feb 2008 , 0870 calls) on the BT network

Sep07_01
ICSTIS to clarify difference between conferencing and multi-party chat

Sep07_02:
ICSTIS to provide more detail on the levy calculation

Sep07_03
ICSTIS to inform Focus group when consultation responses are available on the ICSTIS website

Sep07_05:
All international carriers to confirm their plans for making international access available for 0844 and 0871.

Oct07_01
LP to update September minutes before publication on the Ofcom website.

[end]

Why do I get the feeling that Flextel like their use of 070 numbers, and don't like people knowing exactly how much revenue they are generating from them...

idb wrote on Dec 20^th, 2007 at 6:49pm:

CH stated on behalf of Nic Green that one government department had started using 03 numbers and others were to start in the coming weeks. Ofcom hoped to start using 03 in November.

Which department is this? Are there any others?

I wonder why are their no representatives of consumer interests on the Ofcom NTS Focus Group. :o >:( :'(

Dave wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2007 at 1:32pm:

Which department is this? Are there any others?

Just done some Googling, and it would appear that the Driving Standards Agency is using some 0300 numbers. Other results include the RSPCA (who we already know are using 0300 numbers).

jgxenite wrote on Dec 22^nd, 2007 at 5:12pm:

Just done some Googling, and it would appear that the Driving Standards Agency is using some 0300 numbers. Other results include the RSPCA (who we already know are using 0300 numbers).

They are using them for appointments for the Driving Theory Test and seem to be using 01 geographic phone numbers for everything else.

See www.dsa.gov.uk/OrganisationDetails.asp?id=1563&cat=223

As one government agency is now using them for an activity which takes a lot of calls I'm sure that we can now use this to begin to apply pressure to HMRC, NHS Direct and others that using 03 numbers is possible.

I seem to recall the DSA took a lot of stick over their NGN use a while back.  Its nice to see that at least some government agencies clearly care about their public image.

When I tried calling using 18185 just now the call went click and said the other person had hung up whereas when I called using Post Office Homephone I was connected to an announcement saying the DSA were closed.  But at least 18185 has removed the complete bar on 03 calls, although it seems it has some work left to do in terms of how it is attempting to route those calls.