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The competition I was referring to was the competition in companies providing these numbers. I wasn't suggesting a solution, more giving a reason why BT would be happy to see the price these calls cut.

As for why introduce 0990 in the first place. It is one thing to have local rate non-geographical numbers, but national rate (in the true sense of the words) rips-off those calling locally.

The idea of NTS should be kept separate from [Ofcom's] idea of a 'value-added' service. You say it was BT that proposed these services in the first place. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason that the charges for these numbers have been kept so high is due to Oftel/Ofcom rules. What has this got to do with BT and why is it BT's fault?

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I understand that when BT originates an NTS call it keeps only the amount to carry that call, and has to pass on the rest to the TCP. It is Oftel/Ofcom that has stated this. So other OCPs don't stand a chance of bringing down the price of these calls. Add to that the fact that BT will be a Transit CP for many NTS calls, it can only be BT who determine what (pretty much) everyone pays.

The reason for saying what I say is because it is down to Ofcom to intervene. Do you expect BT to simply reduce the price of the calls when it has no incentive to do so?

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Why single out BT, this happens with all other providers? Also, as I mentioned previously, there are many other companies using these tactics to sell 084/087 numbers.

The fact is that it was inevitable that prices for (geographical) calls would fall. The rates for 0845/0870 numbers were only linked on BT's tariffs, as stipulated by the regulator. If BT were to have reduced its 0845/0870 numbers in line with BT Together rates, would there not be an uproar from providers of these numbers? Can you not see that BT cannot win? It's in a catch-22 situation!

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No, I don't work for BT. My dad is an ex-BT engineer.

I view the whole privatisation of the telecoms industry as a shambles. The whole idea of falling prices has been created using illusions created by the industry as a whole. BT withdrew Standard last year (see my thread on The Scream! forums, BT Standard tariff to be abolished). One big reason why I think that it was withdrawn was because BT's competitors often compared their tariffs to BT Standard. Advertising watchdogs didn't stop this. The competition within the telecoms industry seems to be built on these sorts of half truths and confustion marketing.

BT Together was introduced with lower rates that Standard, where all calls were charged per minute. Then they changed it in 2003, but kept the name. They quietly dropped £2.40 worth of call time! In 2004 they trumpeted a £1 reduction!!! We know that these sorts of halve truths have sold many businesses 084/087 numbers by calling them 'national rate' etc. BT is just one player, and to single it out above others is unfair. ALL providers are just as bad. Advertising watchdogs should have stamped this out.

Let's face it, if the likes of NEG believes it can convince doctors that their system is 'free', then there really isn't much hope.

I do not sympathise with the BT cause, as you put it. BT is a private company out to make a profit, that's what I see. I never said I agree with what it's done. I believe the whole mess can be summed up as poor regulation.

If these numbers had been call premium rate then there would be no problem. Also, don't forget that it is the regulator which determines what numbers are for and not the telcos!

Yes BT introduced 0990 numbers in the first place. As I said before, I didn't see the point of a national rate as it disavantages people calling locally. But the regulator/government should have seen this! BT hasn't broken any laws or anything, the regulator has let it happen.

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Dave,

With regards to your comments of a few days ago my complaint is that the non-geographical calls market is not structured in such a way that it was also "inevitable" that prices for calling those numbers also fell as the number of calls increased.

The reason this does not happen is because the actions of those paying for these products (the end consumer) do not impact on those running the lines (the call centres/service providers) because there are secret interim markets where the service providers are actually competing to get paid the best rate per call rather than to give the lowest call cost to their customers.

This whole NGN idea was invented by British Telecom and it was the whole basis on which Ofcom permitted NGNs in the first place.  I cannot help the fact that we have a regulator in the UK that has for years been totally in bed with BT rather than being a jack booted force of regulatory enforcment as for instance are the parking attendants of Westminster City Council.

Allowing for the uk telecoms industry as it is, which is dominated by a former nationalised monopoly that still behaves as a monopoly and with a so called regulator as weak as water, then it is surely totally reasonable of me to blame BT for (a) taking various devious anticompetitive steps that enabled it to prevent its BT wholesale trunk phone network from being separated from the rental of phone lines and phone calls into individual homes and (b) for coming up with an idea (NTS) that it sold on one basis, as being a handy call routing system for companies withe several call centres needing a national identity when it in fact had quite a separate objective of transferring all consumer business calls to these numbers but structuring the call payment systems for NGN calls so that consumer free choice and market forces did not control call prices.

Yes the telecoms regulator in the UK still is and always has been as weak as water but I cannot so much blame them for this as BT for using various secretive lobbying channels to bring this about and the government for agreeing to it.

As BT has Significant Market Power in the NTS market they call the shots and are primarily responsible for it.  And as for other people routing NTS calls at exorbitant costs, crying and going out of business if call prices fall well I am afraid I have no sorrow and no time for anyone who has built their business from such a parasytic and entirely consumer unfriendly range of activities.  Those who live by the sword should die by the sword is what I say.  And that includes BT.

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Given the expectations that consumers might have of Mr Meek's proactive role at Ofcom his name does appear just a little unfortunate.

It would be nice if the man was even ever interviewed on Radio 4 etc so we could get a better idea of exactly who we are dealing with.

Does anyone know where we can find a CV for him?

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Regarding the current 0870 charges of the Post Office and even call18866.co.uk, both of whom charge more for 0870 numbers than BT, it isn't actually their fault.

The reason this is happening is because in the name of competition BT & Cable & Wireless (the big boys of the telecoms marketplace) were recently allowed to charge other call carrying companies more to terminate NTS calls with BT and Cable & Wireless than they charge for terminating NTS calls that originate on their own networks.  

Thus faced with the need to earn the same percentage margin on 0870 calls as their other calls the Post Office and Call18866 were faced with no option but to charge more than BT for them.  The alternative would have been to refuse to carry the calls but that is something that it is rather hard for an "all calls" CPS provider (like the Post Office) to explain doing.  That would only then lead to angry calls to their customer service department and the explanation that "ahem in order to get you the best price we can't carry the call but you can make the call and get the best price with BT by dialling the prefix 1280 before the rest of the number".

The villain again here is Ofcom who thinks competition is the right of various parties in the industry to charge as much as they want but not the freedom of the consumer to be able to make calls to 084/7 at prices cheaper than the operator with Significant Market Power i.e. BT  Yet for BT to currently be alllowed to offer the cheapest prices to 0845 and 0870 numbers flies in the face of all Ofcom's own rules and charters about the behaviour of the dominant market supplier.

But let's just face it that on the whole Ofcom people just aren't as clever as BT commercial people and that BT basically run rings round them.  It must be like schoolteaching - if you are no good at making money in the Telecoms industry then you take a job with Ofcom.

The big step that would have some immediate impact is for Ofcom to make rules that all calls carried on BT lines with all CPS and indirect carriers and also with BT must have a compulsory price announcement facility before every call stating the price per minute (as per the facility currrently provided for free by call18866.co.uk)

There is a lot of rubbish in the NTS Options for the Future Ofcom consultation about how expensive and difficult it would be for telecoms companies to do this but if so how is it a twobit player, with only 10,000 customers, like call18866.co.uk can afford to do it and still make a profit?  It is not at all expensive to offer this facility but what would be expensive is the huge loss of call revenue to BT that would follow when people simply boycott 0870 in large numbers and send emails etc to the companies concerned instead.

As the Ofcom Consumer Panel has made very clear in its own submission Ofcom has basically been in total dereliction of its duties in the two Ofcom consultation documents on NTS and has suggested a solution that is almost entirely industry centric but in no way in the interests of promiting the cheapest prices for retail domestic telecoms consumers.

Ofcom talks about increased granularity in the price tariff being a good thing but the reality is that like the current nonsense with the 0844 doctors surgery call tariff no one then has a clue what they are paying.  In fact in terms of granularity I think Ofcom must have secretly been using icing sugar so that the whole lot would simply pass through the sieve without any effect whatsoever.

If Ofcom don't get this one right there will be calls for the head of Stephen Carter and also most certainly for the head of the elusive and seemingly highly ineffective Kip Meek.

As for BT going out of business and the telephone system disintegrating  it wouldn't happen given that the economic prosperity of the whole of the uk is at stake.  

But government money might be needed to manage a transition to a national telco running the network but with no ownerhship of the lines into the homes of most
telecoms consumers.  The same model as for the gas and electricity industries should probably be adopted in terms of final supply of the product into the homes of end users.

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He exists here but only as a name:-

www.ofcom.org.uk/about_ofcom/boards_panels/ofcom_board/ofcom_exec/exec_cte?a=871...

Unfortunately despite being a so called communications regulator Ofcom does not publish pictures of any of their senior executive or board members.  This despite it being more or less the norm for corporate websites to do so.

But then the whole Ofcom website looks as though it was designed by Noddy rather than being a professional business like effort.

My allusion to Mr Meek being elusive was brought about by concern that his existence was simply an illusion.  I mean would a real person be called Kip Meek?  The regular guys all have standard names like Stephen Carter, Matt Peacock (seemingly very appropriately named in view of his love of radio interviews), Ed Richards and Philip Rutnam.

But as Mr Meek is the supposed policy guru of Ofcom you might expect him (a) to get some media coverage and (b) change his name by deed poll to something that did not immediately cast doubt on his credentials as a tough and effective formulator of regulatory policy.