Review of the General Conditions of Entitlement

This is a consultation about certain changes that we are proposing to make to the General Conditions of Entitlement, which are the rules that all electronic communications providers have to meet in order to operate in the UK.

We announced this review of the General Conditions in the February 2016 statement setting out our initial conclusions from our Strategic Review of Digital Communications. We said that our focus on gauging the right level of regulation had led us to initiate this review, which will seek to make the rules clearer, reduce the cost of compliance, and remove any redundant rules.

The aim of this review is to ensure that the General Conditions reflect our current policy priorities, and that they are fit for purpose in today’s market. Our objectives include making the General Conditions clearer and more practical, making it easier for businesses to set out processes for compliance, and to ensure compliance. We consider that this should also make it easier for us to enforce compliance in the interests of the general public and consumers.

Our review will look at all of the current general conditions. This first consultation covers about half of them, with the remainder to be addressed by a further consultation planned for later this year. This document sets out how we propose to revise the conditions that fall within the following categories: network functioning (conditions 1-5), public payphones (condition 6), directory information (conditions 8 and 19) and telephone numbering (conditions 17 and 20).

We invite stakeholders to respond to this consultation by 11 October 2016. We are planning to consult on the remaining conditions, which mainly deal with consumer protection issues, later this year. We are aiming to publish a final statement and the revised conditions in the Spring of 2017.

Review of the General Conditions of Entitlement - Consultation on the general conditions relating to network functioning, public payphones, directory information and numbering PDF, 558.5 KB

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Responses

Responder name	Type
Advisory Committee for England.pdf (PDF, 25.8 KB)	Individual
Advisory Committee for Scotland.pdf (PDF, 349.4 KB)	Individual
BT.pdf (PDF, 222.2 KB)	Individual
Chief Fire Officers Association .pdf (PDF, 360.2 KB)	Individual
Communications Consumer Panel and ACOD.pdf (PDF, 191.2 KB)	Individual

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