Quote:


Surely the donation should be at least double what they have earned in order to show that they are sorry.

PeDaSp makes some excellent points. In the aftermath of this, pressure must now be placed on Ofcom to rid the UK of these numbers once and for all. It is time for it to stop dithering. It is time for it to be accountable to the public. It is time for it to put consumers' interests first rather than the interests of BT, Capita, C&W and all the other rip-off merchants. Ofcom has produced consultation documents. It has ignored the scathing comments from the public in response to its consultations seemingly in favor of those from businesses with a vested interest in maintaining the extortion. It has even ignored the detrimental comments from its own consumer panel. When a
crisis happens such as Thursday's events in London, it fails to intervene and point out the sheer (and obvious) stupidity and abhorrent behavior of using a premium rate number to cash in on human misery. For that and other reasons, it has to be taken to task. It has absolved itself from any responsibility in providing a sensible, coherent and accessible telephone numbering system for the United Kingdom. Its policies mean that the UK is the first choice for scammers to exploit the UK system with whatever brings in the most revenue. It is supposed to *regulate* yet all it does it bloviate. Scammers around the world are looking to see what wonderful opportunity Ofcom will introduce next. Poor premium rate regulation, no default opt-out of 09, the NTS 08 regime, reverse-billed SMS and several other rip-off opportunities - all result from Ofcom incompetence.

In the short term, PITO also has to be held both accountable and liable for the debacle of issuing a number that is difficult for grief-stricken relatives to call from overseas and for issuing a number that generates revenue on the back of tragedy. FOI requests will go some way. Publicity will be better. Letters to the CEO will also help. All of these actions will hit PITO in the wallet. The CEO must ultimately take responsibility. I have written to him and will post any response I receive.

Quote:
It's already started:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/09/nafter109.xml&sS...

Desperate relatives besiege police hotline, but campaigners attack 'costly' number

More than 105,000 people have called the police emergency hotline desperate for news about loved ones.

During the busiest period between 3pm and 4pm on Thursday, a team of 200 civilian and police volunteers were bombarded with more than 42,000 calls - a rate of 700 a minute.

Yesterday, as the painstaking task of whittling down the list of names of missing people continued, there were criticisms that the Metropolitan Police were using a controversial 0870 number for their information line against the advice of the phone regulator Ofcom.

Although 0870 numbers are often mistakenly described as "national rate", they usually cost two or three times as much to call as a conventional 01 or 02 number. Similar missing persons numbers in America and Spain set up after their terrorist attacks were free.

[...]

Although the police's handling of Thursday's explosions has been praised, the Met had to defend itself against the criticism that it allocated an 0870 number for the hotline. Calls to an 0870 number cost about eight pence a minute during the day, compared with around three pence for a call to a conventional geographic phone number. A share of the money generated can go to the owner of the phone line.

The longer people are kept in automated queues, the more money is generated.

The regulator Ofcom has urged public bodies to avoid using 0870 numbers and choose cheaper 0845 or freephone 0800 numbers.

The Say No To 0870 campaign was enraged by the Metropolitan Police's decision. It pointed out that the anti-terrorist information line was a free number.

Daniel -, of the campaign, said: "I find it disgusting that someone is actually profiting from people calling in this dreadful situation.

But the Metropolitan Police said it was not taking a cut from the 0870 phone lines.

Quote:
Yes, a very poor article missing most of teh main points including termination from overseas. It also portrays Ofcom in a positive light:

"The regulator Ofcom has urged public bodies to avoid using 0870 numbers and choose cheaper 0845 or freephone 0800 numbers. "

How on earth does this help callers from abroad? Ofcom doesn't seem to understand this simple problem regarding international termination - the very same problem it detailed in its FOI response.

How do we know Ofcom intervened? Did it intervene in response to complaints from the public? I will submit a FOI request (Ofcom never replies to me, so FOI is the only action left).

A missed opportunity by the Telegraph here.

Quote:
He should be probing (although perhaps not literally) PITO, its CEO and PITO's relationship with C&W. He should be researching why Ofcom seemingly did not intervene. He should find out why these agencies were so incompetent. A great opportunity missed.

This is an absolute disgrace. See this letter in today's Daily Telegraph:

Quote:


I am glad that the Met has been shamed into including a geographic London number. As regards putting it as 0044 instead of +44, it is a bit parochial - although some Australian and South African organisations put their international codes as 001161 and 0927 - bugger all use when dialled from those countries, never mind other ones.

Australia has a freephone 1800 number and a local 1300 one for people to contact - even though there's quite a price differential between local and national calls, they're clearly not bothered about the cost. Nor is New Zealand. Same with Ireland. So what's the UK's excuse?

Even if calls are diverted to other parts of the UK (which seems unlikely) or outside it (which would be even more cynical) that is still no justification. I call HSBC's 01226 number in Barnsley, but I may talk to someone in Scotland, India or Malaysia. With Voice over IP it costs practically nothing to receive the call anywhere in the world. 

Quote:

I knew my letter to The Times was going to be too long but I suppose at least a letter this short shows that The Daily Telegraph believes that most people know exactly what 0870 is all about.  Its a pity though that their correspondent Mr Derbyshire did not manage to convey this impression to us in the many more words in his article on the subject in today's DT.

It also seems very worrying that the supposed Police experts on phone technology at Pito seem to be totally insulated from the realities of paying their phone bills that the rest of us have to face.  Yet one of them is the former Group Engingeering Director of BT.