Dear All,

Following an objection raised by a very senior member of Ofcom staff to some comments made in the NTS Focus Groups thread it has become obvious that members of Ofcom staff are actively monitoring this forum for comments made about 0870 in general and of course in particular in relation to the role of Ofcom and its staff.

Whilst this is good news in many ways because it shows that they clearly take what we say seriously it does mean that you may also need to be a little more circumspect and careful in what you say in here than has perhaps been our custom in the past.

So in summary you have been warned.  Big Brother is watching what you say.

wrote on Aug 19^th, 2005 at 6:20pm:

Dear All, Following an objection raised by a very senior member of Ofcom staff to some comments made in the NTS Focus Groups thread it has become obvious that members of Ofcom staff are actively monitoring this forum for comments made about 0870 in general and of course in particular in relation to the role of Ofcom and its staff.

Good. It is no great surprise that Ofcom staff look at this forum. At least it gets a differing point of view to that expressed by the NTS scammers.


wrote on Aug 19^th, 2005 at 6:20pm:

Whilst this is good news in many ways because it shows that they clearly take what we say seriously it does mean that you may also need to be a little more circumspect and careful in what you say in here than has perhaps been our custom in the past.

Not really. Ofcom needs to be exposed for what it is, at least ito telecomms issues - complacent, incompetent and unwilling to provide consumer protection. It has dithered on the NTS rip-off for many years. It is ineffective. It doesn't listen to the public. It should be replaced with a body that puts consumers' interests before those of NTS scammers. The whole NTS regime is predicated by deception. Our cats could have developed a more sensible national numbering plan. Ofcom is nothing but a joke organization presiding over a wholly corrupt NGN scheme.

wrote on Aug 19^th, 2005 at 6:35pm:

Ofcom needs to be exposed for what it is, at least ito telecomms issues - complacent, incompetent and unwilling to provide consumer protection. It has dithered on the NTS rip-off for many years. It is ineffective. It doesn't listen to the public. It should be replaced with a body that puts consumers' interests before those of NTS scammers. The whole NTS regime is predicated by deception. Our cats could have developed a more sensible national numbering plan. Ofcom is nothing but a joke organization presiding over a wholly corrupt NGN scheme.

You may very well say that as also may I when posting on here.

But someone I know well might have to take a somewhat more diplomatic stance when approaching Ofcom wearing their public hat.

But I agree a total lack of confidence in a major public regulator is the key issue.  The fact that their fresh faced under 40 year old Chief Executive is also fomer Chief Operating Officer of NTL gives every possible cause for concern.  I wonder how he came to get this role of a heavyweight uk regulator at such a young age.  I know nothing about him (other than what is posted on the Ofcom website) but I have a horrible feeling that high level contacts with New Labour will have had something to do with it all.

It's "ye olde revolving door"...

What's this boss of Ofcom going to do when his time there expiries? Become a monk? Run a fish and chip shop?

What's the betting he pops right back into the telcom business with his pals. Would they welcome him back if he spends his time at Ofcom protecting the consumer rather than lining his old mates pockets? ...I don't think so.

*cough*ofcom*cough* :-X oh, ok, no comment!

Why should we need to be careful? We are not the ones who have anything to hide.

It is Ofcom that need to be careful - that is the only reason they monitor this forum!

wrote on Aug 19^th, 2005 at 10:18pm:

Why should we need to be careful? We are not the ones who have anything to hide. It is Ofcom that need to be careful - that is the only reason they monitor this forum!

Dorf,

You are right in many ways but sometimes one can say things that one might not say if one thinks the opposition is watching.  As it might give the opposition an advantage that one does not want them to have.  Also why do most of us here not use our real names if we have nothing at all to hide?

Ofcom have plenty to hide though including the disgrace of their allowing BT to increase the cost of basic phone line rental by letting them abolish BT Standard line rental and making BT Option 1 compulsory for 8 million customers.  Yet Ofcom's own just finished review of the value of BT's Copper Wire network shows BT line rental shoul probably only be about £20 per quarter.

So yes Ofcom have much more to hide than we do.

Grow up guys!

The point of this site IS to offer a consumer's point of view.

Ofcom is funded from our taxes and payments to telecom operators. We pay their wages.

0870 etc is a hidden tax...

wrote on Aug 19^th, 2005 at 10:34pm:

..Ofcom have plenty to hide though including the disgrace of their allowing BT to increase the cost of basic phone line rental by letting them abolish BT Standard line rental and making BT Option 1 compulsory for 8 million customers...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but BT are expected to increase line rental again shortly.  It was meant to be around the beginning of this month but the dates were subject to change as this was the email I received from them:-

Quote:

As per your query, I would like to inform you that the charges are to be in effect from 1st august 2005 as per the press release is concerned and these dates are liable to change. Moreover, you will be informed of the proceedings when it comes in to effect. You will receive these updates with your bill...

This was discussed in more detail over on the MSE forum here (pricefigher started the thread after noticing the BT press release).

According to the press release which was issued shortly after our wonderful(!?) OfCOM decided that BT has to widen the margin between the line rental charged by themselves (BT) and those of OneTel, etc (using Wholesale Line Rental) to more than the 50p it is now.  Now because our wonderful OfCOM didn't think things through properly, BT released a press release to say they were reducing the WLR charged to the likes of OneTel, etc by 50p and shortly after increasing the line rental charged by themselves (BT) by 50p as well.  This would effectively mean about £1.50 a month (currently 50p a month) saving assuming OneTel, etc pass these savings on to their customers and for which it would satisfy OfCOM.

Personally though, I think OfCOM should have insisted on BT reducing the cost of WLR charged to the likes of OneTel, etc but at the same time telling them they couldn't increase the cost of line rental charged to their own customers.  Due to this lack of forward thinking, BT compromised by decreasing WLR and also increasing our line rental by 50p a month - making it £1 a month difference.  As OneTel's line rental is currently 50p cheaper now anyhow, this extra £1 means that OneTel could possibly do line rental for £1.50 a month cheaper than BT.

This is why I think BT have done Caller Display free to all their customers including those using CPS providers. They probably hope this will make people think twice about moving their line rental over to the likes of OneTel, etc because for those that use Caller Display (a lot I would have thought), it probably wouldn't be worth moving line rental just yet as the saving is balanced out with BT's free caller display.

This would all change if OneTel, etc decided to do free caller display as well as BT which none of them have yet decided to do.

Update:

For those interested the press-release from BT that I've mentioned above can be found here, the relevant paragraph of this is quoted below:-

Quote:

WLR operators are also set to benefit from greater margins for consumer line rental. BT is to cut the monthly price other operators pay by 50 pence per line from August 1 2005 before raising the amount its own retail arm charges (including VAT) by 50 pence later in the financial year. The price other operators pay for WLR will decrease further next year giving an overall margin increase of more than 10 per cent

But the Ofcom report just publised on the Copper Loop shows that BT only needs to charge £58.51 per year or less than £15 a quarter to cover the costs of the copper loop.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/copper/value2/statement/

Personally I reckon this is still  more totally misleading accounting by BT that their buddies at Ofcom have just blindly signed off given that the copper pipe for my water supply only costs £5 per quarter to rent.  Yet those people actually have a much more expensive network to maintain than BT does.

There is no way phone line rental standing charge should be more than £15 per quarter. The current £126 a year ripoff with no caller display etc is a complete swindle.  Also why should I be forced to go taking a PSTN phone service at all when all I want is a broadband service on the line?  For anyone on a low income (which currently includes me) the high fixed cost of these basic essential services is totally unreasonable, as of course is the council tax, most of which goes on school fees that I don't benefit from.

wrote on Aug 20^th, 2005 at 12:50am:

Grow up guys! The point of this site IS to offer a consumer's point of view.

Farci,

Do you think that with only 3 posts in this forum you are yet in a position to tell us how to run it.

We know very well that this forum offers a consumer perspective.  We are just debating the consequences of Ofcom actively tracking our discussions.

I believe Ofcom was supposed to also consider the consumer perspective as part of its remit but under its present former NTL CEO it seems to have conveniently totally lost track of this particular goal.

BT is being allowed to ramp up the line rental to fund an £11bn investment project to keep its telecoms monopoly in 50% of the country going but it would have been far better for most of us if BT had been allowed to go belly up and its assets transferred to a Telephone Transco without all the historically inefficient staffing methods and oddball cultural traditions that keep BT's costs so sky high.

Farci,

Do you think that with only 3 posts in this forum you are yet in a position to tell us how to run it.

We know very well that this forum offers a consumer perspective.  We are just debating the consequences of Ofcom actively tracking our discussions.

I believe Ofcom was supposed to also consider the consumer perspective as part of its remit but under its present former NTL CEO it seems to have conveniently totally lost track of this particular goal.

My apologies, I did not realise there is an 'us' & the rest of the unwashed -  3 posts or 333. I thought this was a democracy...

My point is we (sorry, YOU THE LEADERS) have no need to be apologetic to the unelected back scratchers at Ofcom and since I vented my spleen the discussion has become more mature and interesting.

Good going - keep reading Private Eye for conspiracy theories. I know I do.

Was that all right, Sir  :o

wrote on Aug 20^th, 2005 at 9:23am:

My apologies, I did not realise there is an 'us' & the rest of the unwashed -  3 posts or 333. I thought this was a democracy...

Dear Farci,

No we do not of course really have a clique here but it was just your comment for us to "grow up guys" that slightly got my goat when one would perhaps only expect such a chiding type of comment to be made by someone with an already well established reputation in the forum.  You were ticking us off but you have not yet quite proved yourself to be an all wise oracle in the forum.

I know of course how annoying it can be to participate in a web forum where there appears to be a clique and the newbies are regularly put down.  But telling us to "grow up" seemed a bit OTT.  I'm sure you could have made precisely the same point in a slightly different way is all I was really saying.

As to Ofcom yes they are an unelected oligarchy who mainly only consider what is in the best interests of the telcos.  But some of us have to deal with them outside the forum under our real identities so might need to be slightly more careful about what we say about them.  That's all I was originally saying.

So - OFCOM are watching. Isn't that supposed to be a good thing?

I concede the point that there have been one or two arguably hysterical conspiracy theories posted on this board from time to time - but so what? Consumer grievance about 0870 numbers has been around for several years, as has the Say No To 0870 forum itself. Yet the regulator has, for the most part, just thumbed its nose up to us - or at least that's how it looks to us.

So I think you can't blame people for thinking there's more to it than meets the eye - hence the conspiracy theories. And you can't blame people for being angry about it too.

So what's the regulator going to do? Is OFCOM going to turn round and announce: "We've been reading the Say No To 0870 forum, and we think that some of the contributors are a bit crazy. We have decided to take vengeance against the ones who have upset us, and we will do this by encouraging the telecommunications industry to charge even more for 0870 numbers."

Somehow - I don't think it's going to happen!

The fact that OFCOM have proved they're watching is a huge step in the right direction, as far as I'm concerned.

When people let rip at Ofcom let's keep a sense of balance and remember that consumer apathy and consumer ignorance are as much a part of the problem as regulation.

There are some (very few) banks with 0800 or geographic numbers, some (very few) credit cards with 0800 or geographic numbers, there are even some mail order companies left with geographic numbers. Why don't these companies get all the business leaving the others with no customers. The answer is largely consumer apathy and ignorance.

Consumers could have stopped the rot years ago if they had voted with their feet.

wrote on Aug 20^th, 2005 at 4:21pm:

Consumers could have stopped the rot years ago if they had voted with their feet.

But they were being missold in the same way as all those people who were conned into giving up their company pension rights and wrongly persuaded to take out personal pension plans.

If they had realised these numbers were more expensive and that they could make geographic calls much more cheaply then non of this would have happened.

wrote on Aug 20^th, 2005 at 12:50am:

Grow up guys! The point of this site IS to offer a consumer's point of view. Ofcom is funded from our taxes and payments to telecom operators. We pay their wages. 0870 etc is a hidden tax...

Grow up LOL check this one out!.. Personally I think the point of this site is a phenomenal challenge that is very succesful in giving people the CORRECT and most FAIR information.. Id like to see ofcom take a note from this site.

0870 is not a hidden tax, its daylight robbery, and we aim to atleast slow our well earned cash lining their pockets and make them realise we want a better service, no matter what they provide.

ofcom.. well I might not know much about them, but if they are so wonderful and powerful as such, then they better start getting with the times.

Farci.. you grow up.

You will see from the below email received from Matt Peacock, Communications Director at Ofcom, today that Matt Peacock is either personally watching or has tasked staff members with watching what is being posted on this site.

You will see that he is fully aware of the discussion that I recently started regarding the new Ofcom consultation on the proposed new 101 national non-emergency number.  Perhaps members of staff in the Ofcom Communications Department even produce a journal each day of what is being discussed on these boards.

In many ways we should be flattered as at least it makes clear they take our views seriously as a threat to their own plans to spin public opinion in a direction that will best suit the business interests of the existing uk telecoms and broadcasting operators.

I suppose if we ourselves became as paranoid as Ofcom we might even begin to imagine that Ofcom had made arrangement to have our email and phone conversations tapped.  But there couldn't be any way for Ofcom to get such powers now could there................

You have been warned

-----Original Message-----
From: Matt Peacock [mailto:Matt.Peacock@ofcom.org.uk]
Sent: 31 October 2005 12:02
Subject: RE: Interesting Websites re Ofcom & Stephen Carter
 
You and I have exchanged many emails on these themes before, so I've nothing to add to our previous correspondence.

You may remember that I mentioned the Home Office Non-Emergency Number project to you a few months ago. You are mistaken on our role here - as some people have pointed out on the www.saynoto0870.com bulletin boards. However, it is worth responding to our consultation, as those views will help inform the Home Office's decision.

Regards

Matt