Barbara wrote on Feb 21^st, 2006 at 4:26pm:


Barbara,

Sadly thus tells us nothing new other than that OfcoN seem completely unable to give any practical effect to the commitments imposed on it in the Communications Act 2003.  See www.ofcom.org.uk/about/sdrp/

Under the Communications Act 2003:
" 3(1) It shall be the principal duty of Ofcom, in carrying out their functions;
(a) to further the interests of citizens in relation to communications matters; and
(b) to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets, where appropriate by promoting competition"

However Ofcom prefer to pay much more attention to to two if its regulatory principles listed on the same web page:-

Ofcom will operate with a bias against intervention, but with a willingness to intervene firmly, promptly and effectively where required.

and

Ofcom will always seek the least intrusive regulatory mechanisms to achieve its policy objectives

Whilst Again Also Conveniently Ignoring

Ofcom will intervene where there is a specific statutory duty to work towards a public policy goal which markets alone cannot achieve

Ofcom are currently Proposing that 0870 be returned to National Rate one day (if that is they ever manage to stagger back to their palatial riverside offices from another massive blow out at a City restaurant with their telecoms industry chums for long enough to find the time) but not 0845 (which were originally sold to public sector organisations as being local rate from anywhere in the country but are now premium rate from anywhere and especially from mobiles) purely on the spurious basis that it might lose Wanadoo and various other ripoff ISPs with legacy customers on 0845 internet dialup some money.  Even though all these customers could easily be moved in technical terms to a 1p per minute at all times 0844 number.  But it might lose some revenue for a beloved industry telco friend which is something that the good old Ofcom buddies who once worked for such outfits in many cases could never countenance.

Let us hope that submissions such as my own in which I mention these proposals by Ofcom being unbelievably bad will have some impact.  But unfortunately as far as I can work out the government seems to wish to let Ofcom be a totally ineffectual and non interventionist regulator so that people like Mr Rupert Murdoch and its various chums at the BBC will continue to say nice things about it.  And Mr David Currie and Mr Stephen Carter at Ofcom seem to be much more concerned to do only whatever the government wants so as to float on to their knighthoods and peerages and another well paid government regulatory job rather than being prepared to fight any sort of crusade on behalf of the uk citizens and uk consumers whom it is supposed to be their principle duty to protect!

See my response to the Ofcom consultation www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nts_forward/responses/sz/shersby.pdf  Especially my comments in Paragraph 5 on Page 9 of my response about Ofcom's proposals on 0845 being "unspeakably bad"