It's slightly misleading, as only 0871 numbers will be regulated by ICSTIS (although 0870 numbers will supposedly become non-revenue sharing).

Also, the last time I heard anything, it was uncertain whether ICSTIS's regulation of 0871 would be as strict as for 09 numbers, regarding the ban on queueing, etc. Does anyone have more up-to-date information on this?

bbb_uk wrote on Sep 26^th, 2006 at 12:27pm:


But Ofcom agreeing to the use of 0871 as an official premium rate is itself a massive and despicable con as the public will still see it as like 0870 and continue to think its National Rate.

An equal con is 0844 and 0845 which are also premium rate failing to be brough under ICSTIS's control.

The world Ofcom is very bad for my blood pressue.  Do you think I can sue them for mental cruelty.

Also bbb do you have any evidence that ICSTIS bothers taking any more notice of what the public says in their responses to its consultations than Ofcom ever did?

bbb_uk wrote on Sep 26^th, 2006 at 7:03pm:


And don't we know it.

We need to force those who have the power to investigate the total regulatory failure of Ofcom to protect the rights of UK telecoms consumers like the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to take the necessary action.

The National Audit Office reports directly to Parliament (not a Ministers) and has quite a powerful influence.  Formal complains about Ofcom’s method of operation and value for money should be made to the National Audit Office - you can send an email.  Free.  No risk.

The appropriate way to challenge government departments or Public Body by court action, is by judicial review to the High Court, that is, the Divisional Court of the Queen’s Bench. Expensive.  You make a formal application (complex) and pay a court fee. If you are not successful you pay the other sides costs.  If you win, they pay your costs.

An alternative method, that has been discussed recently, is to make a formal complaint to the European Commission, either directly or via your MEP, or both.  An email will do.  Free.  No risk.

You can try all or a combination of the above.

kk wrote on Oct 1^st, 2006 at 2:54pm:


The National Audit Office is I think a very real prospect because of the scandalous cost of Ofcom and its cynical careerist self serving non consumer focused senior executives.

Ofcom costs as much as the FCC in the USA to run for a country that has less than a quarter of the population.  The remit of the FCC is very similar to Ofcom.  The French communications regulator only costs a tenth of what Ofcom does.  Also you will note that the Office of Fair Trading frequently takes other industries to task for far lesser anti competitive scams (sunglasses for instance) than the £1 billion a year 084/7 ripoff and its huge detrimental impact on the per call cost of the average uk telephone call.  The problem is that the OFT's powers were transferred to Ofcom for telecoms and broadcasting issues and Messrs Carter and Currie seem to consider that competition entails NTL, Sky, BT etc being able to offer a far wider range of high per month ongoing fee products with hideously complex charging features and total non disclosuure in advance of each individual purchase when you make it in the case of phone calls.

The problem is that the owner of this site Daniel appears to have no real interest in bringing all of these scams to an end since as long as they exist he has a profitable site earning many thousands of pounds a week or month from click through banner adverts.  Daniel is in fact an entirely commercial animal who himself is quite happy to exploit good money making opportunities.

However probably if each of us here who feel so passionately on the issue wrote to the Chief Executive of the NAO, OFT and our MEP and our MP expressing our concern at the cost of Ofcom and the fact that it is not achieving competitive markets it might have quite an impact if enough of us wrote.  The problem is that Daniel controls the mailing list on this site and you will note for instance that he did not email everyone encouraging them to write to ICSTIS a few days before its Pre Consultation closed.  If ICSTIS had receive 1,000 responses from consumers on the scam proposals to move 0871 to it and then not have full price disclosure applied to other 09 ICSTIS controlled numbers they might have felt under a lot more pressure.

Our big problem is that the owner of this site is not drumming up an angry and overwhelming public campaign.  It suits him for people to get angry enough to visit his website to potentially bring him more revenue but it does not suit him for the whole disgraceful scam industry to be closed down.