[quote author=NonGeographicalMan link=board=news;num=1107020501;start=15#28 date=03/03/05 at 23:09:15]
Isn't that how new Labour formulates all its policy and how come none of us are on those focus groups or even got the chance to apply for them?

I bet these groups will be spun to come up with the answers that Ofcom thinks will be acceptable for the business interests of its bros in the telecoms industry.

These people will be a typical dumb cross section of the general public who won't understand the issues so will say they think 0845 and 0870 are ok so long as they aren't called "local rate" and "national rate" any more and so long as there is a price announcement before each call.

Ofcom will not come out and recommend the banning of 0870 and 0845 revenue sharing, even though no less a party than BT has asked for this to happen.  This is because 0870 is New Labour stealth tax policy and Ofcom just does as it is jolly well told by the Labour Government.

The focus groups will just be used to prove that we who responded to the Ofcom consultation so vigorously are unrepresentative fanatics and that the majority of telecoms consumers are still not concerned about this issue.

Iquote]

I'm sorry but I find the response that you posted quite condersending. As a dumb member of the general public I think Ofcom will do better to have the views of people like me rather than people with agendas such as the telecoms company and people like yourself with a vested interest.

If a majority of people don't find this an issue then why as you stated should Ofcom change everything to satisfy a minority of fanatics?

As for been a New Labour stealth tax, come on be sensible these numbers were in use way Bliar and his mob came into power.

[quote author=grimp  link=1107020501/30#31 date=1109932523]If a majority of people don't find this an issue then why as you stated should Ofcom change everything to satisfy a minority of fanatics?

As for been a New Labour stealth tax, come on be sensible these numbers were in use way Bliar and his mob came into power.
[/quote]
The majority of people do not understand these issues because they have been subject to years of brainwashing that that 0870 is National Rate and 0845 is Local Rate.  Thus based on that disinformation they have come to the wrong conclusions.  Just look at the NHS - they apparently now believe that 0844 is "local rate" because NEG have told them it is and because the number is very close in digits to 0845

I think you will recall that in Germany between 1939 and 1945 when people were told that the Jews were an inferior race for long enough that many of them eventually believed it and did not rise up and question the policies of one A Hitler.

As for 0870 being heavily in use long before New Labour came to power this is just not so.  The truth is that OFTEL first allowed NTS in the mid 90s but for ages hardly any firms were on these numbers and it was very unusual to come across one.  It is only in the last 2 to 3 years that these numbers have mushroomed like some viral cancer across the uk business telephone number market.  I think you will find that in 1997, when Labour came to power, that no government department or agency used either an 0845 or an 0870 number.

I note this is your first post in this forum so I wonder if by any chance you may perhaps work at Ofcom?  If not it seems rather odd that you should have paid your first visit to this forum and to this thread just today.

Isn't the point that originally 0870/0845 were introduced to equalise the cost of contact when rates for calls from different regions further apart were sometimes very varied & very high & therefore served a good purpose & it is only in recent times that since all daytime calls  now cost the same 3p per min wherever to wherever that these number became obsolete &   became an unnessecerily(?) expensive & profit making item

Quote:


Oh dear,

You seem another person who too easily believes the cunning BT spin about the reasons that these numbers were introduced.

How can it be an advantage for any member of the public who was living in the local call area of a company to then find he had to call it at the national rate instead?  These numbers didn't improve the position for anyone who had to call the numbers at the BT National geographic rate anyway they just made the position worse for people who could previously call them at BT local rate.

0990/0870 never had a single customer benefit from the start and it was all downside from a customer point of view.  Especially as from back in 1997 or something I could call a uk geographic number for 2p per minute with AXS Telecom but as soon as it became 0990 it cost me 7.91p.  And since there was no saynoto0870.com then there was no way round it.

The only NTS numbers that had some vague claim to impoving life for everyone were 0845 which allowed numbers that most people previously had to call at the BT National rate to be able to be called at the BT Local Rate instead.  However the reality is that the BT 0845 local rate has for years been a lot more than it costs me to call any geographic number at the AXS/Tiscali etc indirect call routing national rate.  So for us price aware customers 0845 has never been better.  Also from the moment that BT Option 2 and 3 and equivalents were introduced 0845 was always excluded.

Unfortunately 0845 and 0870 have only ever had the genuine advantage of intelligent call routing for big organisations with several call centres.  But why the customer was made to pay extra for this instead of the organisations who were running these setups is not at all clear.  It is also not at all clear as to why Intelligent Call Routing could not have not have been offered from the outset on geographic phone numbers.

As I have said previously BT always knew exactly what it was doing with 0845 and 0870 numbers.  It was a cunning way for BT to keep up its call revenues while OFTEL decimated its profits with forced price changes to its geographic national call rates.  0845 and 0870 numbers were always in fact hugely more profitable for BT to originate and terminate calls on even though you like so many people unfortunately seem to believe the well told lie that once upon a time they were simply ordinary local and national rate calls.

[quote author=NonGeographicalMan  link=1107020501/30#41 date=1109935877]
Having now visited this site I have to say that I had to overcome a very strong urge to fall asleep as I scrolled through its long, wordy and boring home page.

I also noticed that it contained praise of the great job that the boys at Ofcom were supposedly doing in relation to some particularly obscure consultation document or other that they had recently published.[/quote]

Sorry but I don't think you actually read any of the posts. The site does not have a homepage as it is a blogg and is open to all to give their views.

Take this one for example

Regulators who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones

Playboy TV have been fined £25,000 by Ofcom for a breach to the ITC rules concerning a sexually explicit R18 broadcast, despite the likelihood that few if any people were harmed or offended, that the existing regulation in this area is obsolete, and that Ofcom are in the process of considering it’s removal. Whilst Ofcom considered Playboy’s transmission of 18-rated material before the watershed in encrypted form, and lesser unencrypted breaches on several occasions around that time to be serious aggravating circumstances, the R18 event was presented as the primary cause of the breach.

Perhaps it would have been better for Ofcom to await the out come of the new broadcasting code review of R18 content before jumping in with a financial penalty? If R18 is to be permitted it would seem harsh to impose such a penalty at this point. Of course Playboy should not have breached the existing rules, however the seriousness of this situation has been taken out of all proportion considering the context.

The real offender in this case is not Playboy but Ofcom and it's inability to create primary tier one broadcasting regulation in a reasonable time frame following legislative changes. As Ofcom clearly stated in the adjudication “Ofcom has a statutory duty pursuant to the Communications Act 2003, section 319 to set standards calculated to secure that persons under the age of 18 are protected, as well as having regard, where relevant, to likely audience expectations.”

I would therefore suggest that Ofcom now complies with it’s statutory duty and immediately sets those standards by finishing it’s work on the new broadcasting code, rather than delaying implementation for 4 months for political purposes. Relying on a code that was introduced by the ITC under an obsolete legal framework is unacceptable.

The delay in the production of the new code coupled with unnecessarily severe and disproportionate fine does nothing for the reputation of the regulator. Whilst the Ofcom sanctions committee “remains concerned that Playboy TV UK may still lack full and formal compliance training routines”, some members of the public have concerns that Ofcom still lacks a modern set of rules to be complied with.

It was also rather saddening to read that Ofcom chose to “remind the broadcasters of the boundaries in which they had to operate” without making a clear public statement at that time of where this boundary lies or even admitting that this activity had taken place, despite being specifically asked to do so.

Does this sound like a site devoted to praising Ofcom. As I stated in my post, this website provides a detailed and balanced view of what Ofcom is doing.

TonyB,

If you look at my thread 'Ofcom and 0990/0870' you will see that I complained to Oftel in 1995 about the use of revenue sharing and increased costs of 0990 / 0870 numbers.
So it is hardly a new problem, it is in fact a problem that should never have been allowed, but when the Prefix codes were all changed the rules were not enforced about their use.
Remember that Ofcom SHOULD be there to protect the consumer, NOT the providers, but every decision it makes always has the proviso that it has to protect the industry.
I am still awaiting an answer to my letter to Ofcom as you will see from the thread,

cheers

Flutty

Grimp

After your posts I had a look at the Ofcomwatch site. I searched  the site for 0870.

I was rewarded by

a) a long list of summaries of  links to somewhat out of  to po0rly reported Ofcom 0870 statements.

b)Lists of the many sponsors of Ofcomwatch who sell 0870 numbers!

I may be wrong bot I have a feeling that Ofcomwatch has allowed  the diquiet over 0870 numbers to pass them by. Any comments