CONTINUED

This is understandable to some extent, in that BT had never experienced competition previously and the civil-service mentality staff had not learned to think commercially in an honest sense. The problem was that Oftel, the regulator at that time, sat by and did nothing, although what BT was doing, using NGNs other than 09 as Premium numbers, was a complete contravention of the regulations and of the original NTNP. Oftel were then in a quandary. As the complaints rolled in from consumers about NGNs other than 09 being used as Premium numbers with queuing they panicked, and invented the term "revenue sharing" so that they could reply to all the complaints with the response "No they are not being used as Premium numbers. It is Revenue Sharing and that is different"!

Once subsequently Ofcom and BT were forced to admit that "Revenue Sharing" was exactly the same as use as a Premium number the current idiocy commenced. Like the pigs in Animal Farm Ofcom then changed the NTNP to attempt to cover their tracks and allow the abuses to continue. That is where we are now. I am sorry to have to repeat this at such length, but this is the problem. People who have come into the campaign at this late stage do not seem to understand the history of how and why this has all come about, and they continuously neglect the issue of call queuing with revenue generation as being the foundation of it all. This is what Ofcom are now desperate to preserve and deceive the public about. You will note for example that call queuing and the tricks with call queuing are always glossed over by Ofcom in all statements and in all consultations. The smoke screen is always "What shall we do with the numbers?" I believe the key issue is "What should be done about call queuing on Premium numbers?".

I thus believe that the only acceptable compromise is that all call queuing must be abolished with all revenue-generating numbers. This would be enforcing the regulator's (Oftel) original decision which they took themselves without any consultation. They understood at that time what would happen if call queuing were allowed with revenue-generating numbers - and it now has!!! That was thus the decision which they originally made and I believe that the focus of this campaign should be for the regulator to enforce the original decision. With that compromise all numbers could stay where they are, with revenue sharing continuing and no one would have to change their number, even though we are back to the total confusion which existed prior to the attempt by Oftel in the NTNP to end the chaos with Premium numbers in different categories, due entirely to their complete failure to enforce their own plan.

So once you understand the history of these scams, there is no way in which any intelligent citizen consumer can ever "be happy" if call queuing on any Premium numbers is allowed to continue. I believe the best compromise is as I have stated - to insist that all call queuing on Premium numbers is prohibited and enforced with heavy fines for offenders. That after all is not a demand from citizen consumers. It is just a matter of Ofcom enforcing the regulator's own original decision so as to end the current abuse and profiteering resulting from call queuing being allowed with Premium numbers.

simond001 wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 12:15pm:


But doesn't the value of 084/7 calls virtually always accrue to the called party and the way they are able to lower their own costs by more efficiently handling the call.  And often that so called extra efficiency is actually deemed to be a more orderly queue, which the caller then pays for even though the called party is actually at fault in generating the queue.

About the only legitimate use of 084/7 numbers that the caller is actually happy with are dial thru numbers for low international call routing services.  In that rare case the extra value of the 084/7 number almost all accrues to the caller.  But anyhow those numbers could function just as well on overt but lower rate 09 premium number codes

Quote:


On that point I am in 100% agreement with you and would even go further and suggest the caller gets an additinal flat rate compensatory payment from the called party of 25p put on their phone bill if the call is not answered in 30 seconds.  If call centres were penalised for bad service instead of profitting from it then they would soon start to smarten up their act.

dorf wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 11:18am:

So BT should just sit back and let competition take the business. Is that not the point of competition? 

What's more, if BT does it, it is a "dirty commercial trick", yet if others had done it, it would (presumably) be acceptable?

dorf wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 11:18am:

When was the first network based answering service introduced? I don't think it was BT that started it off. I guess it was a mobile network thing. That's also a form of charging for a call which does not terminate on the subscriber's instrument. The engaged tone and even ringing out unanswered becomes a thing of the past in the same way that it does so with many NGNs.

dorf wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 11:18am:

If BT had not done it, do you really think that no one else would have done it?

dorf wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 11:18am:

But revenue was only paid on 0990 ("national rate"). Receivers had to pay for receiving calls on 0345 ("local rate").

The fact is that the competition in NGN providers has come about because of the way in which BT was only allowed to retain on a cost-basis, an amount for originating the call. If this had never been put in place, then we would never have as many NGN providers as we do now.

What's more, the more competition, the more providers want to set themselves apart from one another. Sharing call revenue is one such attraction and the more one pays out, the more others do. Indeed, it tends to be providers other than BT who pay out more revenue, a scheme which we oppose. Yet, these companies are not considered to be engaged "dirty commercial tricks", unlike BT who are apparently the only bad guys in all this.

The increased payment of revenue where it is possible is only the opposite effect of the driving down of call charges to callers.

simond001 wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 12:15pm:

The wikipedia entry on propaganda starts:

"Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist." Source: Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda And Persuasion, 4th edition, 2006.

Propaganda [from modern Latin: 'Propaganda Fide', literally “propagating the faith”] is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. The most effective propaganda is often completely truthful, but some propaganda presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience.

Given the first contribution in this thread, which I will repeat below for the sake of clarity, I believe that the term propaganda is wholly appropriate.

What is Surgery Line?

“Surgery Line is a cost-effective way for forward looking surgeries to improve the service that they offer to patients, reduce stress levels for staff and self-fund a state of the art phone system,” explains NEG’s CEO, Richard Chapman. “As you can see, this case study focuses on one of the hundreds of surgeries that have already switched to Surgery Line. By doing so, they have saved money, improved the service that they offer patients and relieved the pressure on busy staff.”

You and your staff benefit When a surgery switches to an 084 number, NEG will install and maintain the most efficient communications system on the market. You specify exactly what equipment you want to receive (from handsets to switchboards) for no extra charge. With your own 084 number, you keep about 2p from every call to re-invest in your practice, instead of BT making all the profit from calls to your surgery.

How your patients benefit Patients benefit by having their calls answered more quickly. The engaged tone becomes rare – even at peak times - because you are able to handle incoming calls more efficiently, whilst patient calls are spread out during the day. Calls to 084 or ‘lo-call’ numbers cost patients 4p per minute, the same as the first minute of BT’s standard call rate between 6am and 6pm. This means that many patients will actually pay less in total because their call is answered and processed more quickly. Significantly, the cost of calls from mobiles remains unchanged - these account for around 30% of all calls to surgeries.

The phone system that won’t test your patients “I’ve met a number of practice managers who think that Surgery Line sounds almost too good to be true,” says Chapman, “but after it’s been installed, they realise that NEG delivers everything we promise, and more.”

dorf,

May I congratulate you on your masterly exposition of the fallacies in the reasoning of one of our esteemed forum moderators in so readily springing to the defence of the underhanded and anticompetitive commercial practices of BT.  Of course BT's latest decision to cut the price of 0845 calls in the weekday daytime below the cost of embryonic and fledgeling 03 calls is yet another example of the disgraceful dirty tricks of which you speak by this company and shows why the goons at Ofcom should not have ever released their price controls on BT's main line rental or call tariffs.

I am happy to see that despite the imminent arrival of your 70th birthday that there is no sign that this is any way impacting on the acuteness of your always highly atuned powers of analysis.

Barbara wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 9:24am:
I agree but it is your telephone provider (BT or whomever) that decides what type of calls to include.

Calls to 08x aren't generally included as we know and I also hate that as well but the reason these calls aren't included is as Dave mentions - these calls cost your telephone provider more to carry the call which would then mean either paying an extremely high price for your inclusive tariff or having other costs increased to subsidise the cost of carrying calls to 08x.  For example, did you know that there could be two, three or even more communication providers involved in carrying calls on 08x hence why they're generally not included.

VirginMedia do have tariffs where calls to 08x are included however it obviously costs more, a lot more, for the tariff and there is a maximum amount of minutes that are included in any one month.  This is to prevent VM going into more debt because if VM had an no maximum inclusive minutes set then most people would be better off on that tariff to save paying for 08x calls but then VM would slip more and more in red (just as they are now).

Like I said earlier, I'd love for 08x numbers to be force migrated to 09x but the reality is that after years of trying, Ofcom have only done a little bit to help by removing revenue sharing from 0870.  ICSTIS has no intention of properly imposing regulation over 0871 numbers that it currently does for 09x.  This, along with the fact that it is obvious beyond any doubt that Ofcom have no intention of sorting these issues out to our (us consumers) benefit.  Instead, and as usual, Ofcom generally always side with that of their telephone provider friends which they all enjoy nice meetings to discuss things without us end consumers being present - even though in some cases decisions are made that directly or indirectly effect us consumers.

If I thought for one second we stood a chance then yes, continue.  However, I don't believe that any other forum member can honestly say that they do 100% believe that Ofcom will give-in and force migrate 08x users to 09x.

Although not ideal, a compromise could basically be to rename the 08x range from lo-call, local/national rate lies, etc to something along the lines of mini-premium rate and then if us consumers are fully aware of the costs involved and the fact that the company (and government department) they are ringing is earning revenue and this fact was advertised/well known and published then I believe that consumer outrage (that is happening to a limited degree now with 0870 numbers) will stop or at least make companies/gov departments think twice before getting one of these premium rate numbers.

This way, consumers are fully aware of the costs (ie call announcements, etc to be introduced) and the fact that they are lower-end premium rate numbers and can then choose whether to do business with a company using these numbers.

Under such pressure, I think most companies would go back to geo or switch to 03x, or at the very least have a 0845 instead of 087x number.

Quote:
So why do you think that forcing telecom providers to include calls to ngns is unlikely but yet you believe that Ofcom will actually do something and force migrate 08x users to 09x?

My point I was trying to make is that I believe realistically pushing for force migration from 08x to 09x and enforcing ICSTIS safeguards is never going to happen although I DO wish it would hence the reason for my post regarding a compromise.

Remember that we are on the same side and ideally all want the same thing but to actually stand a chance of achieving something then I believe a compromise of some kind is needed although not what I'd like.

NGMsGhost wrote on Aug 18^th, 2007 at 1:47pm:
But what do you realistically believe Ofcon will give in to because that's what the poll is about - not what you or I would like!

Quote:
I only meant 084x/087x by stating 08x but you are right and I've amended it accordingly.

Remember this poll is what you realistically believe Ofcom are more likely to do and NOT what you'd like