http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/nts_focus/notes/nts22feb07

NTS Focus Group - 22nd February 2007 - 2.15 pm Ofcom


Agenda item (1) - Introductions
Attendance:
Andrew Wileman
Virgin Media (Chair)

Rob Day
BT

Kath Embleton
BT

Justin Hornby
Cable & Wireless

Laurent Pariat
Cable & Wireless

Becky Hewlett
Cable & Wireless

Martin Tredwell
Call Sciences

Andrew Monk
Carphone Warehouse

Toby Higho
Easynet

Will Goodall
Flextel

Tom Cairns
Gamma

Andy Martin
IV Response

Nancy Saunders
Kingston Communications

Geoff Brighton
Ofcom

Gareth Davies
Ofcom

Nic Green
Ofcom

Clive Hillier
Ofcom

Neil Buckley
Ofcom

Dirmuid Jennings
Reality Telecom

Colin Scott
Thus

Michael Barford
Tiscali


Agenda Item (2): Review of minutes of previous meeting
No comments/concerns were raised. It was therefore agreed that the minutes could be published on the Ofcom website.

Agenda (3): Update/progress report on the current 'live' NTS related consultations/investigations: (Ofcom/All)
Sexual Entertainment Services consultation
Geoff Brighton advised that Ofcom intended to publish a Statement on the 8 th March.

Review of Regulation of Premium Rate Services
Clive Hillier advised that the review remained ongoing. Ofcom will provide an update in due course.

NCCN 500 investigation/NTS call termination market review
Gareth Davies said that the NCCN 500 investigation was in the final stages of legal review. Ofcom intended to publish its findings to the specific parties to the dispute on either the 12 th or 19 th of March.

The call termination market review remains on hold, pending the outcome of the NCCN 500 investigation.

ICSTIS progress re. Governance of 0871
Clive Hillier confirmed that the ICSTIS consultation document was due to be published in March.

General Condition 14 Enforcement Programme
Clive Hillier advised that the Ofcom investigation was continuing.

BT POLO Dispute (1 st October 2006 OCCNs)

Attendees were advised that BT’s dispute referral had been resubmitted and subsequently accepted by Ofcom. Investigation is underway, with the case being lead by Nick Morris.

Agenda (4): Update on arrangements for call termination payments under new 0870 regime
Andrew Wileman provided a recap on the progress of the NTSFG sub group that had been looking at the options for interconnect charging under the future 0870 regime. Andrew said that despite the group investing a significant amount of time on the issue, and reaching a broad consensus on an overall framework, it was unlikely that CPs would agree on the finer detail. This diversity of views was rooted in historical contentions with the NTS regime and as such resolution was unlikely without regulatory intervention. Andrew added that the sub group members did not want a dispute to arise – and had tried very hard to avoid the need for regulatory intervention. However, the majority of attendees expected that such a situation would prevail. At the previous NTSFG meeting Ofcom had been asked to assess whether it could offer any advice/provide a steer on the principal points of contention, in the hope of reducing the chance of a dispute arising. Gareth Davies said that while Ofcom supported the industry's desire to avoid an interconnection dispute, it was felt that it would be unwise to give any guidance without more detailed consideration of the new 0870 termination arrangements, such as would be undertaken in the context of a dispute. Any without-prejudice guidance that might be provided at this stage may be subject to change upon more detailed consideration of all the factors involved. There would therefore be a risk that it may prove to be unhelpful or counterproductive (see also update on AP Jan07_01 below).

Andy Martin asked when BT was planning to issue OCCNs for the new 0870 charges. Rob Day said that BT intended to issue pricing letters in mid-April 2007. Justin Hornby asked if they could be issued earlier. Rob said that he didn’t think that there was scope to significantly expedite the process, given the amount of work involved in their creation. Rob added that BT needed to have its pricing offer formally signed off before issuing pricing letters. He anticipated that this would occur at the March BT pricing board and (assuming that it was successful) the earliest that BT would be able to issue pricing letters would be early to mid April.

Colin Scott asked if Ofcom would accept a dispute referral prior to any pricing letters being issued. Geoff Brighton said that he believed this would be possible, however referees would need to ensure that they could prove that all potential avenues for resolution had been pursued.

Several attendees suggested that it would be prudent to prepare dispute referrals in advance of pricing letter receipt. Kath Embleton said that BT could submit a referral to Ofcom very soon after receipt of a rejection notice if the preparatory work had been substantially completed in advance.

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Several attendees raised concerns that they could not migrate existing services to 03/open new services without the necessary interconnect arrangements & charging protocols being agreed and in place. Nic Green asked what progress had been made with industry discussions on 03 interconnect and charging arrangements. Andrew Wileman said that these discussions had been included in the work of the 0870 charging workshop – and the same contentions had arisen. Colin Scott said that the workshop had put significant effort into reaching a solution for both 03 and 0870, but legacy diverging views had meant that both situations were unlikely to be resolved without regulatory intervention.

Given that CPs had no view of an implementation timetable for 03, it had not been possible to ‘plan backwards’ as had been the case with the 0870 implementation timetable. Colin added that if interconnect arrangements/charges were not agreed and in place, a potential situation could occur in which the implementation of 03 was effectively frozen for all CPs other than BT. A number of attendees shared this concern and it was suggested that such a scenario could constitute a competition issue.

Colin said that CPs effectively had two choices. The first was to agree to unpalatable commercial terms and launch 03 services. The second was to dispute pricing letters (and hence not open/launch 03 codes) thereby losing competitive advantage to BT (and possibly other CPs).

Discussion turned to the process for raising a dispute. Colin said that CPs could submit a dispute to Ofcom, but would need to have a number range allocated. In order to expedite the process, CPs could in theory issue an OCCN, but BT would require an SIA Schedule to be in place against which it could be issued – and to create a Schedule would require the submission of an SOR to BT.

Laurent Pariat asked if BT could provide indicative contractual terms for an 03 service. Kath Embleton said that BT did not have anything to offer at the present time, but agreed to consider what such terms might look like.

New Action Feb07_04: BT to provide an indication of the form of contractual terms for 03 services.

Colin Scott asked if Ofcom had any remedy or solution to the situation. Nic said that Ofcom could not do anything in the absence of a formal dispute.

Andy Martin asked if there was anything that Ofcom could do to ensure that 03 was universally available. Neil Buckley said that under the current regulations, there was no absolute legal obligation on CPs to open the code. However, Ofcom would be doing all that it could to ensure that universal access was available. Neil added that Ofcom intended to consult on the prospect of obliging CPs to open all number ranges on their networks.

Kath Embleton said that BT was in the same position as the rest of industry as it would require other CPs to open BT ranges on their networks.

Martin Tredwell asked if there was any indication of the level of availability from mobile networks. Neil Buckley said that Ofcom hoped that numbers would be opened on a business as usual basis.

Attendees concerns & considerations around the implementation of the 03 range were broadly summarised as follows:

Commercials are yet to be agreed
Breadth of access to 03 numbers is unclear
BT could effectively benefit from a competitive advantage (by opening number ranges/launching services while other CPS remain in dispute)
If a CP decided to sign up to (unpalatable) 03 prices in order to facilitate service launch, but wanted to dispute the charging arrangements, how could this be achieved?

Neil Buckley said that Ofcom would consider the concerns.

New Action Feb07_05: Ofcom to review the concerns around 03 implementation and consider potential remedies to the situation.

Several attendees suggested that service launch in general should be prohibited until interconnect/charging arrangements were agreed and/or any dispute had been resolved. Andrew Wileman said that a number of CPs were in the process of writing to Ofcom requesting that the implementation timetable and procedure for 03 and 0870 be revisited. It was anticipated that this representation would be submitted to Ofcom within the next week. (Post meeting update: letter sent to Ofcom by Cable & Wireless on behalf of a number of CPs on 1 st March).

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Agenda item (7) – Any Other Business
No items of AOB were raised.

Date of Next Meeting:

Note that the date of the next meeting has been moved to Monday 2nd April 2007. The meeting will commence at 2:00pm and will take place at Riverside House, London

(Was Wednesday 28 th March)

Summary of New and Outstanding Actions:

Aug06_09
Porting differential issue to be added to the agenda of the first NTSFG meeting of 2007

Nov06_03
Ofcom to confirm if the use of 0871 as a presentation number will be prohibited once covered by ICSTIS’ jurisdiction

Jan07_04
Ofcom to consider the request for an extension to the 0870 implementation timetable

Jan07_06
Andrew Wileman to contact the chair of the Mobile Broadband Group with a view to seeking representation from the mobile community at the NTSFG

Feb07_00
Ofcom to confirm its response made at the meeting in writing to Flextel.

Feb07_01
BT to confirm if it will be applying pre-call announcements to 0870 calls post 1 st February 2008

Feb07_02
Andrew Wileman to discuss attendance of selected NTSFG representatives at the Mobile Broadband Group with Hamish MacLeod

Feb07_03
Attendees to consider if the duration of the 03 parallel block reservation window should be reduced and feed back to the chair

Feb07_04
BT to provide an indication of the form of contractual terms for 03 services

Feb07_05
Ofcom to review the concerns around 03 implementation and consider potential remedies to the situation

[end]

I also strongly suspect Ofcom are planning on postponing the 1st Feb 2008 change date for 0870 and have already tipped ICSTIS the wink on this.

In view of comments in these minutes I am going to write to Ed Richards, CEO of Ofcom formally asking for consumer representation at these NTS Focus Group meetings.

Its clear the whole Ofcom plan is in total meltdown and what they actually need to do is to change 0845 and 0870 numbers to GN rates at the same time.  They also need to set a clear final date for all 0845 and 0870 numbers to migrate to GN priced 03 numbers after a transition period and also to set a clear date for all 0844 and 0871 numbers to move to 09.

Also its apparent from Ofcom's urgent 3 month timetable on compulsory issuing of MAC codes that Ofcom can act quickly when it wants to.  I would suggest this is a matter on which urgent and rapid action by Ofcom is now required.

BT owned Plusnet's announcement of a new 01 number for customer contact as a result of customer complaints on this issue is a growing sign of the widespread consumer revolt against telecoms ripoffs.

Dave wrote on Apr 14^th, 2007 at 12:55pm:


The PM has already sent me an email reassuring me that The Red Arrows are not going to be closed down, even though the petitition against this is still open and running.  So strange he did not have a prepared response to hand when the 084/7 petition closed.

I am sure the Petitions unit would have like to answer this immediately claiming the problem will all be solved on 1st Feb 2008 but stumbling on the incredible bodge up agreed to by Sean Williams and the rest of the Ofcom nincompoops and finding that it did not provide this simple and straightforward outcome they had hoped for they have gone off to think further about it.

Perhaps not least because of the fact that far more government departments and agencies are using 0845 rather than 0870 numbers.