Dear Gdh82,

Thanks for your email, which Vicki Nash passed on to me for action. I attach
below the text of a longer email explaining the detail of the various
consultations and investigations. In summary, I am happy to reassure you that
the proposed changes to the 070 guidance do not have any direct effect on the
questions related to pricing of calls to hospital patients. I hope this
addresses your concerns.

Regards,

David Stewart

[attached text follows:]

Dear Sir,

I refer to your earlier note to Vicki Nash, who suggested I reply directly.

In summary, I am afraid there may be a misunderstanding here - the consultation
you refer to doesn't have any connection to any investigation, open or closed,
involving Patientline or any other provider of calls to hospital patients. My
apologies for the length of this note but I thought you might find it helpful to
have the situation set out clearly.

In fact, the commentary in our guidance on 070 services for calls to hospital
patients remains unchanged in the revised guidance.

For example, you can see the old (Jan 04) text here:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/numbers/num_070_guide#content

If you compare the text of the bullet point in relation to calls to hospital
patients in the old and new versions, you can see that it has not changed. This
reflects Ofcom's view about the appropriate use of 070 numbers for calls to
hospital patients; this is separate (in Ofcom's view) from the question of the
prices charged for those services.

The reason for the new 070 consultation is (as we said at the time) to adjust
our guidance to give clarity on an issue about the role of service providers and
their responsibilities to take reasonable steps to ensure that their customers
are using numbers in ways that are consistent with the Numbering Plan. That
objective, and the context to it, are set out on our website here:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/personal_numbering/#content

To put this in context, this constitutes a minor adjustment, adding text on an
issue about which the guidance has previously simply been silent. This guidance
explains Ofcom's approach, but doesn't directly affect the legal rights or
obligations of any person; those remain as set out in the Numbering Plan and
number allocations. There is no statutory requirement for consultation under
those circumstances. As you know, Ofcom is committed to transparency and to
consulting above and beyond our formal requirements, and therefore, Ofcom
elected to conduct a short consultation in any event. (Any contribution you wish
to make to that consultation would be welcome). 

Finally, I note that there are two different investigations involving
Patientline and it isn't clear which one you intended to refer to:

The first investigation concerns Patientline's conduct in relation to
Competition Act issues (which is considering, amongst other things, the question
of whether the 50p constitutes excessive pricing under competition law). This
investigation is on-going. As with any open investigation, we have no public
comment other than via our Competition Bulletin, available here:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ocases/open_all/cw_8...

The second investigation concerned the use by Patientline of 070 services via a
switchboard. That investigation has now closed. It resulted in our determining
that the use of such services via a switchboard was inappropriate (a conclusion
which is obviously consistent with both the old and new 070 guidance). This was
not related in any way to the question of the pricing for incoming (or outgoing)
calls - it related simply and exclusively to the use of PINs or switchboards,
which we viewed as inconsistent with the requirement for callers to be able to
dial directly the person using the 070 number.

The outcome of that investigation was that Ofcom issued a s.94 notice to
Patientline requiring them to use 070 numbers in line with our guidance. The
recent decision to grant Patientline an extension to the time to comply with
this requirement (in a small proportion of the sites) was not related to, and
does not affect, the first investigation or Patientline's pricing for any
services. Details concerning this investigation, together with the s.94 notice,
can be found here:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ccases/closed_all/cw...      

I trust that this provides you with a clear picture of these various activities
and the reasons for them. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify the situation.

Regards,


David Stewart

Director of Investigations

[ends]

So does this mean that any companies who want to operate 'services' which don't fit the "traditional mode" start their service first and then find out whether Ofcom will "consider it to be [a] legitimate Personal Numbering Service".

NGM, re your earlier comment concerning revenue sharing with the terminating subscriber on 070 PNS: I understood that revenue sharing with the terminating subscriber had been banned (only temporarily) with 070 PNS by Oftel some while ago. So I don't think it would be possible for any patient to have a share? In any case I don't believe that the rip-off companies like Patientline would want to share their ill-gotten gains. They want all the revenue they can get.

Of course no patient will probably actually use the facility to direct calls elsewhere but its very existence would I suspect make Patientline legal.  Also I suppose Patientline might offer to redirect the 070 number to your home number when you leave hospital and then if some of your friends don't realise you are back at home Patientline then go on clocking up 50p a minute and you the ex patient will have no way of knowing the call was going via the 070 number instead of being dialled direct.

The whole point of 07 numbers in fact seems be to run a premium rate service whilst dodging using an 09 number controlled by ICSTIS.