dorf wrote on Nov 15^th, 2005 at 7:32pm:


Dorf,

This is also allied with their other cunning tactic of failing to provide an email address or postal address or telephone number for any consultation respondents (even those who do not want to withhold their name) so as to make it impossible for pressure groups to easily form.  By the way Dorf have you complained to Ms Vicki Nash, Ofcom's new consultation champion about the alteration of your document as I know you made it a condition of your response that they should not do this.

I post below a copy of my email to Ms Nash of this morning regarding their delay in publishing any responses to the 070 PNS consultation and also about their withholding of postal and email addresses for respondents to their consultations.

-----Original Message-----
From: NGM
Sent: 15 November 2005 12:03
To: vicki.nash@ofcom.org.uk
Cc: matt.peacock@ofcom.org.uk; stephen.carter@ofcom.org.uk; ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk; kip.meek@ofcom.org.uk; gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk; colette.bowe@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk; bob.twitchin@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk; consumerpanel@ofcom.org.uk
Subject: Publication of Responses to Ofcom Consultations and Names & Addresses of Respondents

Dear Ms Nash,

Further to our recent email discussions I now write on a couple of further issues connected with Ofcom Consultations:-

1. I responded to your 070 PNS Guidelines Consultation that closed last Tuesday 8th November but to date neither my response or any other responses received to that consultation have yet been published.  Can you therefore tell me when you plan to publish those responses?  Also what is Ofcom's internal policy on publishing responses to consultations that the respondent is happy to have published in their own name?  Is your document scanning and/or website management department currently aiming to turn these responses around within any specific number of days?

2. Who is managing the presentation of consultation responses on your website since at present this is often done in a chaotic and inconsistent way and sometime firstname and surname are shown and other times only surname and initial.  Also where there are large numbers of respondents Ofcom seems to have the greatest possible difficulty in displaying them logically in alphabetical surname order.

3. Can Ofcom also explain its current policy of withholding the name, postal address, email address and/or phone number of respondents to consultations, even when the respondent has indicated they are entirely happy for their response to be published under their own name?  It seems obvious that one consequence of the withholding of this information is that it is advantageous to Ofcom since it prevents the easy formation of lobby groups of individuals who are not in agreement with a variety of Ofcom consultation proposals that fail to fully protect the best interests of uk citizens and consumers and instead protect the entrenched business interests of the telecommunications and broadcasting industries.  Can you explain on what basis you refuse to reveal even email addresses or telephone numbers of respondents to your consultations who are happy for their response to be identified?

I look forward to hearing from you on these matters,

Regards,

dorf wrote on Nov 15^th, 2005 at 7:25pm:
Most of the ones I read were praising ofcom for doing something.  This is all because of the way they phrased their questions & summary.  Only if you read the 200+ page document do you know the full ins & outs.  Everyone knows that very few people in the grand scheme of things are going to read a 200+ page document.

They also released the other consultation at the same time but this has got very little attention and I suspect was a plan by ofcom to avoid the spotlight.  Both consultations are directly related to the whole 084x/087x issue so why put them in different consultations?  The website summary for the first (main) consultation doesn't even mention the other consultation.  I only knew about this other consultation after reading the 200+ consultation.

I do believe that's why they also released the 07 consultation (with only a very limited consultation period) as less attention would then be on this.

As always a clever plan by ofcom to avoid having to fulfill their obligations to us consumers.

bbb_uk wrote on Nov 15^th, 2005 at 8:02pm:


And of course the 1 year clock to act on 0870 only starts at the earliest from when they report back on this consultation making new regulations, which is sure not to be till next summer, especially with the well paid Ofcom staff going away on so many frequent holidays.  And if they are so surprised and overwhelmed at all the public response to this consultation and feel they then have to incorporate the unexpected level of comments and launch yet another consultation on all this well then it could be at least 18 months from now till the 1 year clock to the end of 0870 revenue sharing starts.

Actually my reading of the consultation is that where people have done more than just answer the questions (which really shows a total lack of brain power and effort on the part of the people concerned) there is overwhelming hostilty to the continuation of all 08 revenue sharing in any form (Ofcom's Option 4 in their last NTS consultation).  And by contrast there is only one response so far that says the abolition of 08 NTS is a great loss and should definitely not be allowed.

Unfortunately many people who have responded who clearly visit this site only to look up alternate geographic numbers (but obviously never particpate in the forum from their comments) have been hoodwinked into thinking it was all Ofcom's idea to do something about 0870 and have no idea of the background.  They are the ones who mainly say Yes, Yes, Yes.  But where anyone writes a few paragraphs the overall tone is that all 084/7 is a total scam and should be stopped.

On the 0871 being regulated by ICSTIS issue many just say yes its a good idea but a few brighter ones do say "no this should be moved to 09".  The thing is if all the people who say lets regulate 0871 with ICSTIS had been asked if 0871 and 0844 should also be renumbered 09 we know they would all have said Yes to that too.  Unfortunately most people only treat things in life at a superficial level and it doesn't seem to occur to them that there are many more issues involved other than the questions that Ofcom has chosen to ask.  If many of these people now take degrees then no wonder they are having to make exams easier so as to get far more of the population through them.

dorf wrote on Nov 15^th, 2005 at 9:50pm:
That is exactly what it comes down to.  Everytime I try and explain to people that 08x numbers earn revenue it was no they don't. That's what 09x numbers are for.

The government using an 0870 for the london bombing and some press-releases that followed is what has highlighted this more.  I suspect that's why this consultation has nearly 500 responses compared to around 100 (I think) on the last one.  I personally believe it's all down to the fact that for years 084x numbers were known and described as local rate, and 087x numbers were known and described as national rate.

No new submissions added today.

bbb_uk, surely Ofcom are not technically correct in this , since now a very small proportion of BT's customers are on the Light User Tariff. Therefore the vast majority of telephone subscribers do not now pay BT's standard Local rate for 0845 calls, and those using other telco carriers certainly do not. Their statement is therefore not only technically completely incorrect, but it is also grossly and deliberately misleading since almost everyone therefore is paying higher rates for 0845 calls.

What, ignoring the interests of Citizen Consumers again NGM? Surely not!

In other words bbb_uk, its just another example of the smoke and mirrors deceiptfulness of Ofcom? Like: "You are Green (unless you are a human being)"?

You can see the inextricable commonality between Ofcom and BT can you not? They have the same style of small print and deliberate misinformation. The similarities are far too great to be just coincidence.