NTS Focus Group - 11 August 2005 - 2pm Ofcom

Meeting Notes & Actions

Agenda item (1) - Introductions

Attendance:

Colin Scott	THUS (Chair)
David Franks	MCI
Geoff Brighton	Ofcom
Karen Wray	C&W
Dave Simpson	Easynet
Chris Pace	IV Response
Andy Martin	IV Response
Toby Higho	Centrica
Tim Stephens	C&W
Andrew Wileman	Telewest
Becky Hewlett	Energis
Rob Day	BT
Mark Amoss	BT
Alex Cheetham	BT
Colin Annette	BT
Sarajane Amey	NTL
Debbie Mulloy	NTL
Mike Barford	Tiscali

Agenda item (2): Update on NTS Policy Review and the NTS Call Termination Market Review (Ofcom)

Geoff Brighton provided an update on the policy review. Geoff said that Ofcom planned to publish the document on the 17th of August however that date may slip a week. Gareth Davis was currently on leave and Clive Hillier and Caroline Chandan-Roels were busy writing the document.

Geoff said the consultation on General Condition 14 would be published a few days after the policy consultation. Ofcom had prioritised its workload and the final Retail Uplift statement should now be published around14 days after the NTS policy consultation document.

Geoff said that the Call Termination Market Review was entirely separate from the policy review and the plan was to publish that consultation in the 3rd or 4th week in September as the work on the market review had to be co-ordinated with the NCCN 500 investigation.

Andrew Wileman asked if the General Condition 14 consultation sat alongside the NTS policy work. Geoff said that the consultation on GC14 was linked to the policy consultation and focused on pricing transparency.

Geoff said that the period for comments on each of the consultation would be:

Framework Review – 3 Months (subsequently changed to 10 weeks)
General Condition 14 – 3 Months (subsequently changed to 10 weeks)
Retail Uplift – Final Statement
Market Review Consultation - unknown
NCCN 500 - unknown

Geoff said a plain English summary would be published two weeks after the main Framework Review consultation.

Post Meeting note: the NTS Policy Consultation, amendment to GC14 and the NTS Retail Uplift/PRS bad debt statement (including the PE Summary) were published simultaneously on 28 September.

Colin Scott asked if FG members would receive an embargoed copy of the framework review ahead of general publication. Geoff said he would look into this, however there wasn’t likely to be much time between the document being finalised and the time of publication.

Dave Simpson asked if any of Ofcom’s proposals had changed from those outlined on the 11th of July. Geoff said that no changes had been made and Ofcom’s proposals would be set out in the consultation.
Geoff said the delay to the publication of the document would not shorten the time for any changes to be implemented, with the clock starting following publication of the final direction.
Geoff said the consumer research would be published in full in an Annex to the main consultation.

Debbie Mulloy asked if Ofcom could publish the consumer research in full prior to the consultation being released. Geoff said Ofcom would consider the request, however as the consultation was expected to be published in the near future it might not be worthwhile.

Agenda item (3): Proposed Changes to the CPL

Mark Amoss outlined BT’s proposed changes to the Carrier Price List. Following the move to INCA/CLI NTS interaccounting BT are proposing to stop publishing section 1.02.1 of the CPL as this information will no longer be required because NTS interconnect rates will become generic. Mark said 92% of the 90,000 lines in section 1.02.1 were NTS and maintaining this represented a significant overhead for BT.

Section 1.12 would be maintained and would list all CP number ranges and the termination rates (inc. any BT Transit fee – where applicable).

Becky Hewlett asked what happens if an operator doesn’t sign up to a new pricing letter / OCCN.

Mark said BT would take an action to look at how 1.02.3 could be modified to show when an operator hadn’t signed up to the pricing within it.

New Action #V/1: BT to consider how they show payments to operators who haven’t signed up to the pricing in section 1.02.3.

Tim Stephens said that section 1.02.3 which contains INCA / CLI NTS rates would be updated automatically without operator consent.

Debbie Mulloy said a lot of industry porting agreements refer to section1.02.1 of the CPL. Tim Stephens said C&W has a number of internal processes that required section 1.02.1 of the CPL to function.

Debbie Mulloy said the problem with the generic section 1.02.3 means that operators would effectively sign up to rates / chargebands for services they don’t have. Colin Annette said that the process for signing up to pricing would still be done by Pricing Letter / OCCN. So an operator would only be able to interaccount on new rates when a pricing letter /OCCN was signed by both BT and the CP. Just by including generic 1.02.3 rates in the CPL, BT wasn’t imposing them on any other CP. Colin said that the issue of if and when a operator signed up to revised rates was only a matter for BT and the operator concerned and BT didn’t need to disclose this fact to any other party. Tim Stephens said that this information has always been provided in the past and BT were now proposing to withdraw it, causing some operators additional costs to modify internal systems and process.

Andrew Wileman asked if BT produced something akin to section 1.02.1 prior to producing 1.12. Mark Amoss said BT didn’t plan to publish anything other than section 1.12 (as customers using BT for transit required this information).

Debbie Mulloy asked if section 1.12 would have real effective dates, as currently section 1.12 has effective dates, however as the transit buyers only pay the prevailing rate at the time, the effective dates are usually irrelevant. Debbie asked if BT had a plan to update section 1.12 with the date the rates are effective for transit traffic (and not with the date on the pricing letter) as this issue causes operators problems with billing and reconciliation.

Mark Amoss said BT would take an action to look into to updating section 1.12 with the date the rates are effective for transit charging purposes (and not pricing letter dates).

New Action # V2: BT to consider how to amend section 1.12 to show the effective charging date for transit calls instead of the Pricing Letter effective date (as listed now).

Agenda Item (4) – Review of remaining outstanding actions

Mike Barford provided an update on action #T/1 - to establish an NTS FG working group with the aim of resolving the NGNP issue. Mike said that he had spoken to Colin Annette and Colin Rochester about moving this issue forward. A meeting to discuss the issue in more detail would be arranged for September. If any CP wanted to be involved they should email Mike Barford (Action #T/1 Carried Forward)

Mike said that a few CPs had contacted him about 0844/0871 volumes prior to the 1st of October 2004 (Action #U/1 – Closed).

Agenda item (5) – Any Other Business

No AoB was raised.

Date of Next Meeting:

Thursday 15th September– 2.00pm Ofcom – Riverside House, London

Remaining Focus Group meeting dates for 2005:

27th October
8th December

Summary of New and Outstanding Actions:

# T/1:	Mike Barford to establish an NTS FG working group with the aim of resolving the NGNP issue
# V/1:	BT to consider how they show payments to operators who haven’t signed up to the pricing in section 1.02.3.
# V/2	BT to consider how to amend section 1.12 to show the effective charging date for transit calls instead of the Pricing Letter effective date .