In other words these are more or less precisely the proposals Ofcom announced in their consultation document three months ago totally unmodified in the light of any comments received with the possible exception that there is now a firmer commitment to ensure that 03 are numbers priced at the same tariff as 01/02 calls by any telecoms provider and not just that they can be at the same price as geographic calls
But the basic problem is not overcome that those who were scammed into getting 0845s must get a new 03 number to do the right thing while the business of the telco number salesmen scammers will carry on largely untrammeled. Also due to the widespread forces of inertia, ignorance and deceit associated with the whole NTS industry clearly people like the Inland Revenue will take forever to change from their current 0845s. Had 0845 numbers been priced at geographic rates imminently there would have been at least some near term solution.
It is an utter disgrace that the totally incompetent overpaid Stephen Carter stays clear of one of Ofcom's most important issues and allows 0845 which were supposed to be Lo-Call for public services to remain premium rate revenue sharing numbers charged at up to 35p per minute or £21 per hour from mobiles. This is on the excuse that 0845 dial up calls are still very important when over 8 million uk phone lines now have broadband.
The whole of this consultation's outcome was in any case completely prejudged by the fact that Ofcom put out its statement on 084 and 087 numbers before responses on this consultation even closed. As a result we all knew that Ofcom had already made up its mind to maintain the nonsense of the 08 prefix code containing Freephone numbers, lower cost premium rate revenue sharing numbers including 087 controlled by ICSTIS and and 0870 moving to geographic national rate. A scheme quite deliberately designed to leave most of the business of the scammers undisturbed while forcing anyone decent to get a new 03 number.
I have also become convinced that the whole deal with making 0870 into national rate on 31st Jan 2008 is in fact a covert way to help the scammers by rendering most of the information in our own database worthless at the start of 2008 and us then having to find out a whole lot of new 0871 numbers that most of the 0870s will migrate over to.
I note how most people have not had the heart to even say anything about this statement by Ofcom because most of us feel so outraged that the regulator can behave this cynically, incompetently and corruptly that it leaves us speechless with indignation and fury. Also note the 27th July release of this very controversial statement which is clearly designed to ensure that it will get lost in the summer holiday period when most people are busy with other things.
The disgraceful super careerist and quite unprincipled Stephen Carter is paid over £400,000 a year for allowing he and his other overpaid henchmen to kick the public in teeth and to feather bed the interest of Sky, BBC, Capita et al where he no doubt now hopes to get his next million pound job having learned precisely nothing at all about the proper duties of a public sector organisation during his three or so grotesquely overpaid years at Ofcom.
Sorry but this whole thing just leaves me quite speechless with rage. We ought to do a press release to express our indignation but most of the press seem to have been got at not to cover this story in any detail and/or Ofcom has left it deliberately impossible for the to understand what is going on by the absurd and illogical complexity of their proposed solution.
Lastly with BT apparently cutting over uk phone exchanges to its 21st Century Network and Voip only traffic from the start of 2008 onwards are we therefore to assume that most phone calls will still be made using telephone numbers rather than the voip equivalent of email addresses? If so it seems the business of NGN calls will continue unhindered.
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Ofcom review of UK Telephone Numbering Plan (Read 326,568 times)
