I've cut and paste this post as I felt it was getting lost in the OFFCOM - Future of 0870 thread...
I would like to follow up, however, earlier parts of this thread on organising and assisting a more widespread response to this latest consultation:
Quote:I think a pop up box telling people how to respond to the consultation when people come to the site to get a geographic number would get a lot of responses sent. Especially if there was a form and a Send button to just send off your complaint to the Ofcom email address.
If it just listed bullet points and perhaps referred to a thread in the Discussion Forum for those more interested that would probably work.
Quote: There have been over 1,000 views of this thread up until today. If just half of those people sent an opinion to Ofcom it might have some impact. But they won't as things stand. Why? Because it's too much hassle.
That's where this site comes in. The organisers and contributors have the expertise to make it easy for casual passersby to submit an opinion to Ofcom, without the need to go to all the trouble of reading the consultation documents. People looking at this site already know the issues - they don't need to read hundreds of pages of formal documents to have it explained to them.
So could I suggest that some kind and knowledgeable person sets up a new thread entitled "This is how you send your views on 0870 numbers to Ofcom" (or something along those lines).
The top message would provide two things:
(1) the email address to which a submission can be sent (It has to be email or nine out of ten won't bother)
(2) two (or at most three) of the main points to be made in a submission to Ofcom.
The message should be a maximum of 200 words, if that. Make it as easy as possible for the people who can contribute five minutes but no more.
Finally, remind people to be brief, clear and polite. Abusive, confused messages won't strengthen the case.
I found your link to the plain english version of the consultation extremely useful and a good place to start to those coming new to this consultation:
Quote: Like many others no doubt, I'm keen to put my penny's worth into this consultation, for what its worth, so please, please can we have your help in setting up a new thread to assist us with this. In addition, pop-ups for more casual users of this site , links with MoneySavingExpert and maybe PledgeBank.Com, and even suggestions to viral email friends and relatives could only help to gather the momentum for a considerable response to this consultation opportunity.
I think there's something like 6-8 weeks before the deadline to this consultation to gather support so we need to start a campaign to respond asap.
Regards
Garry