I took the liberty of CC'ng my full Response to the ICSTIS Pre Consultation to this list of senior Ofcom personnel and Ofcom Board Members.

Although I suppose you could argue that we shouldn't pass this information into enemy hands I expect you will find that ICSTSIS may let Ofcom see the Responses to this consultation anyway eventually and I expect it does no harm to let especially the Non Exec Ofcom Board Directors who feature in this list know how much unhappiness there still is with the disgracefully inadequate nature of their proposals for the whole 084/7 regime and especially 0844, 0845 and 0871 numbers.

Here are the people I CC'd on my response:-

stephen.carter@ofcom.org.uk; david.currie@ofcom.org.uk; ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk; kip.meek@ofcom.org.uk; sean.williams@ofcom.org.uk; matt.peacock@ofcom.org.uk; clive.hillier@ofcom.org.uk; colette.bowe@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk; gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk; philip.graf@ofcom.org.uk; millie.banerjee@ofcom.org.uk; ian.hargreaves@ofcom.org.uk; stephanie.liston@ofcom.org.uk; sara.nathan@ofcom.org.uk; gareth.davies@ofcom.org.uk; geoff.brighton@ofcom.org.uk; steve.unger@ofcom.org.uk

Bobbyboy wrote on Sep 30^th, 2006 at 11:29am:


There is a "Personal Message" link on the bottom of every post by a forum member.  Just click that to send them a Private Message.  However you also need to go into your User Profile for the forum and turn on the feature that sends you an email and brings up a message box when you visit the forum if you have new Private Message.

I have constantly copied in Tessa Jowell the Culture minister and senior directors at the OFT and Competition Commission on many of my communications over the last two years but they have all turned deaf ears.  084/7 is a benefit fest for various important friends of New Labour in the commercial sector who do things New Labour wants and make donations to New Labour.  That is why this blatant scam never stops but only gets worse every month.  The media seem totally stupid on telecoms pricing issues and the business correspondents never take an interest in a matter worth over £1 billion a year of cost to consumers.  And when MPs question Ofcom do they go on about the £1 billion 084/7 scam.  No they get obsessed with 118 Directory Enquiries which there are lots of scams and is another area of major Ofcom incompetence and deceit (for instance call centres offer to connect you to the number you want but still go on charging 50p per minute) but nowhere near on the scale of 084/7.

I'm not quite clear of your background BobbyBoy and what has suddenly brought you to this web forum now rather than at an earlier stage?

bbb_uk wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2006 at 5:43pm:


Dear bbb,

I have only just seen the published response list to the pre-consultation (as I was desubscribed from this thread due to my new forum member ID) and it is very disappointing that so few members of the public have responded and I'm afraid it only goes to confirm that I was correct to be very disappointed that Daniel did not bother to send an email to all forum members 3 or 4 days before the Pre-Consultation closed advising them it was critical to respond.

Of particular concern is that the Site Owner has once again failed to respond to an important consultation document himself, still rather suggesting that his main priorities seem to lie elsewhere.  Also bbb_uk did you respond to this pre-consultation since although I see the name of the other main forum moderator on the responses list I do not see a name that appears to be you.  There is another member with the same first name as you who has responded but I know from previous PM correspondence with that person he is not you.  Perhaps though you are the anonymous respondent to the consultation?

The responses from the telco groups are the usual sickening stuff claiming that not much consumer detriment is involved so not much protection is needed.  No mention of extotionate rates from mobiles to 0871 potentially being charged and also not even being able to call the numbers at all from overseas.  Also very disappointing is the BT response where the commercial side of BT now seems to have gained the upper hand over the ethical and corporate responsibility side and their response seems an all out attempt to ensure a replacement for the substantial amounts of revenue their NTS number vending side will lose when 0870 revenue share is abolished.

Don't forget though that this is only a Pre-Consultation though and will lead to the full Consultation document in a couple of months time.  I can only hope that Daniel will remember to email all the forum's members 3 or 4 days before that Consultation closes (any more than that and people will put off doing it and not get round to it) stressing it is vital for as many people as possible to respond.