On BBC R2 News at 9am today, the head of ICSTIS, Sir Alister Graham, said:
“Transparency is at the hart of regulation”

I have no problem with premium telephone numbers that begin with “09". Most consumers realise that they are going to be charged above normal rates for the call and that the organisation using that number range is to receive a share of the telephone call cost for providing some sort of service.  Number starting with “09" are, to a large extent, transparent.

What I object to is the clandestine premium rate numbers: 0845, 0844, 0870, 0871 and 070 which do not start with “09"; those numbers are popular with organisations for the very reason that most users do not realise that money is being extracted from them to share with the telecom provider and/or organisations using them.  They are popular because they are not transparent.

So Sir Alister, I expect you will be joining us to campaign against the use of all 0845, 0844, 0870, 0871 and 070 telephone numbers.  Someone has even suggested that the above number ranges should be extended; in the light of what you said Sir Alister, I assume that was a practical joke.

“Transparency is at the hart of regulation” ... but the regulator is heartless. 

Tanllan wrote on Mar 9^th, 2007 at 9:45am:


Sadly neither the staff of Ofcom or ICSTIS are in any way witless but merely cynical, totally unprincipled and utterly ethically compromised (due to their former close personal associations with the telcos in many cases).