What continues to incense me is that in all these claims that "those who currently rely on the revenue from these scams to provide these wonderful services which they deliver...."  the scammers and their supporters always markedly avoid consideration of the viable option that any entity which really wishes to provide a value-added service, rather than a standard telephone call with extortion, has always got -  the option of 09 numbers. As we all know in almost all cases the 08 rip-offs are with "services" which are not services at all. They are just normal telephone calls, but with the additional extortion of queuing on line to significantly increase the revenue collected.

We really do have to begin to discriminate clearly between those telephone calls which are normal telephone calls and those which truly deliver a real value-added service. Then we can clearly and equitably see that no entity should be allowed to extort revenue from normal telephone calls. On the other hand any entity which wishes to provide a true value added service which they expect the customer to pay for, in addition to the cost of a normal telephone call, should be using 09. Ofcom have allowed NTS to cloud this rational thinking, which was of course present originally in the new UK telephone numbering structure.

Once you rationalize that you can see the unavoidable reality that what all of this confusion and skulduggery is about is to deceive consumers, so that call queuing can be allowed. As I have to repeat over and over this is the real reason that all of the organisations benefiting from this racket do not want the gravy train to end, and why Ofcom will not do the right thing. Where organisations use 09 they cannot have call queuing, and that is why in most cases they can make much more revenue with all the 08 scams!

It seems there is an online register of Members Interests after all but only 20 people seem to be listed and the Commons web link is broken.

http://www.parliament.uk/about_commons/register_of_members__interests.cfm

I have telephoned them to ask why.

I feel sure Mr Bruce's entry will make for some very interesting reading.

Here is the entry from the Register of Members Interests for Malcolm Bruce, MP.  Me thinks Mr Bruce may be being somewhat economical with some other interest he appears to have in the telecommunications industry:-

BRUCE, Malcolm (Gordon)
5. Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)
  1 and 7 March 2004, upgrade from World Traveller Plus to Business Class by British Airways on both outward and return flights to India. (Registered 13 May 2004)
6. Overseas visits
  6-8 February 2004, to Podgorica, Montenegro, arranged and funded by the East West Parliamentary Practice Project (EWPPP) to discuss parliamentary democracy with Montenegrin politicians. Travel and accommodation provided by EWPPP. (Registered 13 May 2004)
  1-7 March 2004, to New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai, India, to meet with government ministers, officials, organisations and businesses to discuss trade and investment issues. Visit arranged by Liberal Democrat Friends of India and funded by the Indian High Commission. (Registered 13 May 2004)
  10-12 December 2004, to Pristina, Kosovo, arranged and funded by the East West Parliamentary Practice Project (EWPPP) to discuss parliamentary democracy with Kosovan politicians. Travel and accommodation provided by EWPPP. (Registered 18 January 2005)
  12-16 December 2004, to Moscow, arranged and funded by the Russia Foundation. Travel and accommodation provided by the Russia Foundation. (Registered 18 January 2005)
  16-18 February 2005, to Washington DC and New York, to attend a Senate hearing and a seminar at New York University School of Law on the Yukos Case, Russia and US national interests. Business travel, transfer from Washington to New York and hotel accommodation in each city were paid for jointly by the New York University School of Law and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. (Registered 2 March 2005)

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According to the consultation documents put out by Ofcom, prefixes are broken down into 10,000 blocks, eg 0871 123xxxx which are used for charging purposes. In the previous "Options for the future" there was talk about how much it would cost for systems to be upgraded to charge on a more granular basis. Each individual  originating provider (ie, BT, TalkTalk, Orange etc) will have to make changes in their metering system if they are all to charge like this.

How BT pick out individual numbers (as in the case of BT's exclusion list for 01/02 numbered ISPs) I don't know.

I quite agree that this would be a compromise we could live with, especially as internet dial-up numbers are never actually dialled by a human. That way they could appear on phone bills as "Dial-up Internet Service".

Of course, of dial-up internet had been given its own separate prefix, then this wouldn't have been an issue. Instead, they preferred to sell such services as being at "local rate".

Another suggestion to be considered is that much is made (usually by NTS providers and the target organization) of the usefulness of what NTS provides to them. Accepting that position for a moment, then shift 0844, 0845, 0870 and 0871 to 01844, 01845, 01870 and 01871 respectively and allocate seven-digit numbers. Open up unused 01XXX codes for NTS ranges once these are exhausted. This will allow the numbers to be treated as geographic by callers from anywhere in the world, and the target organization will have to fund the cost of the NTS aspect (as happens here and I suggest in most places outside the UK). Sadly those areas with geographic codes above will have to have a new allocation but this is a small sacrifice for the eradication of a corrupt system. The above isn't perfect but just a thought and an option. There may well be better ways of dealing with this. Any genuine number that needs to derive an income must shift to 09 - the number range allocated for this very purpose in the first place.

That is the principal issue idb, as you say all uses of NGNs where revenue is required must be moved back to 09 where they belong. I do not believe it is difficult at all to plan a proper use of the 08 category. ISPs could easily be allocated a relatively low rate 09 category. It is all about wanting to plan a proper structure which conforms to the National Numbering Plan. However I don't agree with your idea re 018.... That would just confuse things even more. Any number commencing 01 must stay geographic.

Also there is no acceptable reason that NGNs cannot be made accessible from abroad. Other countries manage it, for example this is why scammers have been using Premium numbers abroad for Trojan diallers to fleece some UK internet users. The real reason is that Ofcom do not want to do any of these things and they fight it all the way.

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My dear Dorf you cut to the heart of the matter as always.

The only reason the 0845 dialup ISPs don't want to change their customer's dialup number to something else is because any email on this subject to the customer would remind their customers that due to inertia they are being ripped off at £1.80 per hour in the daytime to connect to the internet, whereas even if their home internet needs are minimal they could move to an 0808 dialup service like www.flexi-surf.co.uk which gives them 60 hours a month of 0808 internet access time for only £5.

The reason the 0845 dialup ISPs don't want their apple cart upset is precisely because this is another huge ripoff area where older non IT savvy customers don't move away from a very expensive means of internet access through inertia and lack of knowledge.  My mother, who inherited my Compuserve's 0845 account, was one such internet user until only very recently.  I kept trying to persuade her of the need to move but aged 70 she was fearful of change.

It is clear Ofcom should make the 0845 dialup ISP merchants change to an 0844 number and restore 0845 to non revenue sharing status as soon as possible and at the same time as 0870.  The only reason Ofcom claims it can't do this is because it would badly affect the business interests of a company like NTL, AOL and Wanadoo where some senior Ofcom personnel have until not so long ago been employees.  And as a result the aforementioned companies have far too much high level access on first name terms to senior Ofcom staff.