Dave wrote on Jan 12
th, 2012 at 3:39pm:
NGMsGhost wrote on Jan 12
th, 2012 at 3:28pm:
SilentCallsVictim wrote on Jan 12
th, 2012 at 2:36pm:
Ofcom proposes that we move forward to a more realistic situation. With the tariff unbundled, a Service Provider will be able to confidently state their Service Charge, but say no more, other referring to the fact that the caller's telephone company will add an "Access Charge".
So Ofcom proposes that callers should not know what a revenue earning call will cost before a caller makes it unless they search for quite deliberately made hard to find tariff lists from their own telecoms provider? Several of these telecoms providers even remain in flagrant breach of the requirement to publish such tariffs on their own website.
For any particular tariff, there won't be different Access Charges applicable to different 0844 numbers, for example.
It is not yet clear as to how many different "Access Charges" will be permitted under the terms of a particular tariff, although the proposal is that there be just one to cover all calls to which a "Service Charge" applies. This will most likely have to be extended a little given that some "Service Charges" will continue to apply per call, rather than per minute. There is strong opposition (from Ofcom) to the present situation, where landline "Access Charges" are partly per call and partly per minute. I agree that this mixture of methods is highly undesireable.
I personally cannot accept an argument which suggests that the bad debt risk element of the cost of high priced calls should be part of the Access Charge, thereby requiring many different Access Charges. I argue that this should form part of the Service Charge, which may need to be taken back by the OCP, under separate arrangements to cover this risk.
It would be hoped that if telcos were only required to publish a single Access Charge (or relatively few), they would be more likely to comply, than they are with the present situation where they, effectively, have to publish every one of the different bundled Access+Service Charges that may apply. If callers are familiar with any of the elements of their tariff, it could be hoped that they would be aware of the Access Charge before contemplating a call.
There are good arguments for and against PCAs. My personal view is that they should only be used in circumstances where the information may be expected to come as a surprise to the caller, so as to make them review their decision to make the call. There is an unanswerable argument for PCAs in the case of chargeable 080 calls from mobiles and calls to 070/074 numbers, if at a rate greater than that of a call to a mobile number. I do not believe that the cost of providing them (which will ultimately be met by callers), not to mention the annoyance and possible confusion, is justified, other than in cases where there could be some surprise.
I would have no strong objection to the principle of telcos offering PCAs, or something more, as an additional optional facility for their customers to choose, probably subject to a monthly fee. This could be seen as the return of the old ADC feature. I would however be concerned if this were seen to become the norm.
For me, the strongest argument against PCAs, except where justified, is that they may be seen as a way of avoiding providing the information that a potential caller needs at the time when they consider making a call. Once they have picked up the handset and dialled, they have already committed some of their time to making the call including that preparing what they are to say.
The time to present call cost information is when arranging (or amending) the terms of the telephone service, with the telco, and when a Service Provider solicits a call by presenting their number. PCAs provide a backstop for where it is likely that this mechanism has failed.
Let us hope that under new arrangements it will not fail so often. I feel that it is better to give attention to remedying the failures than perhaps "giving up".
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