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Home > Telecoms > Industry Groups > NTS Focus Group > Notes of meetings > NTS 11 July 2005


09|08|05

NTS Focus Group - 11 July 2005 - 2pm Ofcom

Meeting Notes & Actions

Agenda item (1) - Introductions

 Attendance:

Colin Scott

THUS (Chair)

Gareth Davies

Ofcom

Caroline Chandan-Roels

Ofcom

Karen Wray

C&W

Clive Hillier

Ofcom

Dirmuid Jennings

Reality Telecom

Nancy Saunders

Kingston

Dave Simpson

Easynet

Chris Pace

IV Response

Rickard Granberg

Opal Telecom

Toby Higho

Centrica

Tim Stephens

C&W

Jim Ashton

C&W

Andrew Wileman

Telewest

Helen Morgan

Energis

Andy May

Energis

Rickard Granberg

Carphone Warehouse

Kath Embleton

BT

Rob Day

BT

Mark Amoss

BT

Alex Cheetham

BT

Dominic Carney

Your Communications

Sarajane Amey

NTL

Fabienne Dischamps

Band-X

Mike Barford

Tiscali

Richard Anderson

COLT

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

Gareth Davis provided a status update on the NTS policy review. The policy has not been finalised and could be subject to further revision. Headline results from the market research had been received, but not the detail. Ofcom's market research department was currently reviewing the results.

Gareth said the NTS team would present their initial proposals to the Ofcom Policy Executive on the 18 th of July and then the Ofcom board on the 26 th of July. A full twelve week consultation is planned, with the consultation document expected to be issued on the 3 rd of August.

Gareth outlined Ofcom’s initial proposals, explaining that the remedy differed depending on the number range.

0870

Andy May said BT would not be allowed to discriminate between BT Retail and alternative providers. Gareth confirmed that BT would not be able to discriminate.

0871

Andy May asked how this change would impact on the retail uplift charge control. Gareth said that under the proposal after the interim period the retail uplift would cease to be relevant for 0870.

Rickard Granberg asked if originator would be able to include 0870 within call packages (including packages which zero rate calls). Gareth said this was the expectation.

Gareth went on to outline the proposals for 0845 and 0844:

0845

0844

Toby Higho asked if these proposals would require a change to General Condition 14 (as there are 3 provisions in the GC14 already). Gareth said that a change in the guidelines accompanying GC14 would be required.

Nancy Saunders asked if communication providers would need to seek re-approval for their Code of Practice. Gareth confirmed that would be required (the consultation would address the issue of CoPs and GC14).

Andy May said the proposals would require a substantial change to the way ICSTIS works given the volumes and services available. Gareth said that ICSTIS had come a long way in the past 12 months clearing much of the backlog.

Tim Stephens asked how the requirement to charge geographic call rates for 0870 calls or make an announcement would be enforced. Gareth said that the numbering plan would be used (there was a precedent relating to 0800 traffic).

Chris Pace said that there had been issues in the past with ICSTIS relating to the pricing transparency for PRS. Gareth said that ICSTIS now had a good relationship with the ASA and the consumer research has so far indicated much better pricing awareness for 09 numbers.

Clive Hillier ran through some of the initial market research findings:

Rickard Granberg asked what proportion of calls to Ofcom contact centre related to actual 0870 call charges rather than incorrect perceptions of call charges. Clive Hillier said that Ofcom didn’t have this breakdown.

Chris Pace and Fabienne Dischamps said that Ofcom’s initial rationale for conducting the review (Pricing Transparency, Price V.s Value, Public Service use and Call centre waiting times) had identified only the issue of pricing transparency as a consumer problems and asked why Ofcom hadn’t suggested a remedy to combat this issue.

Andy May asked why Ofcom was proposing to restore the geographic link on 0870 and not 0845? Gareth Davis said that there would be fewer benefits and more costs involved in restoring the link on 0845.

Colin Scott said that if these proposals were to be implemented following the initial 1 year period 0845 would be more expensive than 0870 on some call plans. Gareth said that pricing guidance on 0845 would mitigate this problem.

Andy May said that many companies questioned by Ofcom aren’t likely to know the additional costs they will face if revenue share is removed (ie. The costs of intelligent call routing, call stats etc will need to be recovered).

Karen Wray asked if consumer perceptions of 0871 were very different from 0870. Clive Hillier said he couldn’t quote the research findings chapter and verse but the research indicated that 0871 was less expensive than PRS but more expensive than 0870.

Karen Wray said that if 10% of 0870 users moved their services to more expensive 0871 services which would mean a worse outcome for consumers, would Ofcom plan to initiate another consultation? Gareth said that no further consultations were planned.

Fabienne Dischamps asked if a public information campaign was planned. Gareth Davis said Ofcom weren’t planning to launch a campaign but he hoped the industry would inform consumers of the changes and noted that Ofcom intended to propose a modification to General Condition 14 to require OCPs to give more prominence to NTS call charges.

Gareth said that following the consultation a statement would be published, most likely in January 2006.

Karen Wray made the point that Ofcom originally launched the NTS Framework re-examination project as an access and interconnection review, however these concerns seem to have been replaced by a consumer based review.

Alex Cheetham asked if Ofcom had an update on the call termination market view. Gareth said that Ofcom still planned to publish in early August.

Agenda item (3): 0844 / 0871 Short Duration

Rob Day provided the background to this issue. Rob said that OCCNs had now been issued to all operators with the relevant 0844 & 0871 numbers. Of the 41 chargebands are affected, only 16 have live traffic. For those services with no traffic to sample, the average durations have been used. BT would also be issuing NCCNs to amend 0844 / 0871 charges for BT terminated traffic with effect from 1 September 2005.

The effective date on the OCCN is the 1 st of September 2005. Rob said that BT would also accept retrospective invoices for revised 0844 and 0871 traffic back to the 1 st of October 2004 for BT Originated traffic, with retrospection to 1 October 2004 provided on a reciprocal basis.

The OCCN contains details on the methodology used by BT. Rob said that BT were planning to conduct quarterly reviews on the rates.

Chris Pace asked why October 2004 had been picked. Rob Day said that in BT’s view volumes weren’t material prior to this as volumes increased markedly at the back end of 2004, hence October was a reasonable offer. A debate followed on what could be interpreted as material.

Mike Barford said that he would take an action to co-ordinate views from FG members on a start date for long/short on 0844 and 0871 and then pick this up with BT.

New Action #U/1: if anyone believes that their 0844 termination volumes prior to October 2004 are material they are to contact Mike Barford directly.

Agenda Item (4) – NTS INCA Billing update

Mark Amoss said that an updated slide pack would be issued (Action #T/2: BT to provide an INCA CLI update at the next NTS FG – closed). Mark said that timetable for the INCA update is as follows:

Mark said the NTS levy invoice would be issued quarterly.

Dominic Carney asked if there would be a period of parallel running. Mark said that no parallel running was planned (the Direction didn’t specify it and BT’s systems couldn’t accommodate it). A three month (1 st December – 28 th February) bedding in period to iron out any issues had been allowed for (to cushion the impact of any possible system delays).

Mark Amoss also raised the issue of the process of updating the CPL and the number of rates required to be published in the CPL (following the move to CLI billing for NTS). Mark said BT were hosting a meeting to discuss the issue on the 21 st of July in central London. Operators should contact mark.amoss@bt.com for details.

Agenda Item (5) – 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 attended the NGNP process group. The NGNP group had roughly half the attendance of the NTS FG and was made up of the same companies (albeit represented by a different individual). The NGNP Process Group agreed to track the issue. Action #T/1 ongoing.

Agenda item (6) – Any Other Business

Dominic Carney asked if there were any plans to discuss the outcome of the TSR within the NTS FG. Mike Barford said it would be a more relevant issue if ASD were to sell call origination. Alex Cheetham said that under the proposed structure ASD wouldn’t sell call origination. The group agree that it might be a useful topic to consider at a future meeting.

Date of Next Meeting:

Remaining Focus Group meeting dates for 2005:

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

# U/1:

Operators who believe that their 0844 and 0871 volumes are significant prior to October 2004 should contact Mike Barford.


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