http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/groups/nts-focus-group/notes-of-meetin...10|05|10
NTS Focus Group – 4th February 2010 – 2.00 pm OfcomAgenda item (1) - IntroductionsAttendance:
Justin Hornby C&W
Geoff Brighton Ofcom
Sean Hartley BT
Cim Manley BT
Peter Farmer Gamma
Kath Embleton BT
Thomas Gransalke Orange
Markham Sivak Ofcom
Andy Martin IV Response
Stephen Ornadel T-Mobile
Laurent Pariat C&W
By telephone:
Colin Scott C&W
Kulshal Sareen 3
Sandra Reid VirginMedia
Rickard Granberg CPW
Apologies:
Will Goodall Flextel
Sarah Godfrey 4D Interactive
Dirmuid Jennings announced that - had sold their NTS business and as a result he would no longer be attending the meetings.
Catherine Gerosa from Invomo sent her apologies and announced that she was leaving the company.
Agenda (1): Review of Actions.Justin Hornby opened the meeting and confirming that no actions were outstanding following the last meeting.
Agenda (2): Update / progress report on the current 'live' NTS related consultations / investigations: (Ofcom/All) * PRS Scope Review
There was no update to give from the last Focus Group.
* NTS Retail Uplift and PRS Bad Debt Surcharge:
Geoff Brighton reported that the draft BDO report was about to be submitted to Ofcom. BT has verbally informed Ofcom that the pointing of codings to Bad Debt have been found to include 0844 and 0871 traffic. Ofcom is currently awaiting amended figures from BT but it currently appears that the figures may have been overstated.
Geoff cautioned that this may have a knock on effect to the NTS Retail Uplift as the bad debt is reattributed. Once Ofcom is in a position to do so a new stakeholder meeting will be held.
* NTS Review
Markham Sivak provided a comprehensive update regarding Ofcoms forthcoming review which is better termed a Non-Geographic Review. The approach will be comprehensive and Ofcom intend to start from a blank piece of paper. The current approach is seen as no longer being viable due to the number of disputes between operators and complaints from consumers. Ofcom will examine the overall experience consumers receive from using NTS, PRS DQ, 03 and Personal number ranges. From there they will investigate both the overarching retail and wholesale models. 0800 is being picked out as a starting point.
In the first instance the review will be consumer focussed looking at the transparency of prices, how services are bought and any existing concerns of participants in the market. The new EU framework that is being introduced will give Ofcom greater powers to intervene at the retail level in instances of consumer harm. This is not yet domestic legislation and Ofcom will be seeking input to understand the Consumer Protection / Service Provider relationship.
Ofcom will seek understanding of how the industry works through a pre-consultation document. This will include engagement with industry groups in order to fully understand how the funding flows. This includes Section 135 information requests being sent to providers. Market research will also be conducted to understand whether any groups in particular suffer from issues to do with a lack of transparency.
Indicative timeline:
* March: S.135 requests to operators and pre-consultation document
* Middle 2010: Consultation
* End 2010: Statement and possibly second consultation
* 2011: Implementation work (initiative will depend on whether new legislation is required)
Markham confirmed that Ofcom would be looking at SMP condition AAA11 as part of the review.
Andy Martin asked whether the plan was to keep the current ranges in place or to close everything down, commenting that it may be easier to close everything down. Markham reiterated that nothing was being counted in or out at this stage.
* NCCN 500
Geoff informed the group that Ofcom had kicked off work into the latest dispute between Cable&Wireless and BT as notified in the Competition Bulletin of 2nd February. Ofcom are still looking at the detail and it is too early to comment further at this stage.
* 080 Termination Rate Dispute
Geoff informed that a decision would be issued to the parties of the dispute the following day with general publication following next week. It was possible that this may be delayed until next Friday. Geoff indicated that there would be no surprises in the document.
Justin asked for confirmation that interested parties would also receive a copy of the document at the same time as the parties to the dispute, which was given.
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~ Edited by Dave: URL updated