Working for consumers remained at the heart of Oftel's work during 2000, according to Oftel's Annual Report published in July.

The annual report is an important account of Oftel's work in another year that saw major developments in the telecoms market.

Growth in consumers' use of mobile phones and the Internet was particularly marked which meant that Oftel's work continued to be relevant to increasing numbers of consumers.

There are now over 40 million mobile subscribers and for the first time in 2000 the number of mobile phone users exceeded the number of fixed line connections.

Opening up Internet access in the UK to businesses and consumers was an important focus of Oftel's work in 2000.

In May 2000 Oftel acted to require BT to provide wholesale unmetered Internet access to other operators from its local exchanges. This was a groundbreaking decision, without precedent in Europe and helped promote the delivery of competitive unmetered services in the UK.

At the beginning of 2000 there was no unmetered Internet access in the UK; by the end of the year around 2.3 million households were using some form of dial-up unmetered Internet access package.

The introduction of unmetered Internet access contributed to a surge in UK households connected to the Internet. In total, 2.75 million more homes went online in 2000.

Other important achievements over the year included:

• implementing a strategy of 'competition plus', ensuring regulation appropriate to the level of competition in a particular market;
• initiating several effective competition reviews to ensure that appropriate regulation is in place;
• renewing BT's retail price controls for a further year to protect consumers while competition continues to develop;
• working with the Government towards the development of a new regulatory framework for electronic communications.

At the time of publication, David Edmonds spoke of the importance of Oftel's strategy, which was published early in 2000 to give a clear understanding of Oftel's approach to regulation - withdrawing from regulation where it is no longer necessary, but taking decisive action where competition is not yet delivering the best deal for the consumer.

Oftel was also looking to the future through its close involvement during 2000 in work to create a new framework of regulation for electronic communications to reflect the convergence between the telecommunications and broadcasting sectors.

Oftel contributed to work at both national and European level to create a consistent framework across all electronic communications markets to allow competition, investment and innovation to flourish and to deliver clear benefits to consumers.

In the UK this has meant close involvement with the development of policy since the publication, in December 2000, of the Government's White Paper A New Future for Communications. In particular Oftel has been involved in taking forward proposals for OFCOM, a single regulator for the telecoms industry, which will take on and develop the work currently done by Oftel, the ITC, the Radiocommunications Agency, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Radio Authority.

Oftel has also published a new guide to its work which explains its approach to regulation in increasingly competitive and dynamic markets and how it is addressing issues relating to convergence and the creation of OFCOM. Copies of this guide are available from Oftel's Research and Information Unit, tel: 020 7634 8761/
e-mail:infocent@oftel.gov.uk.