Quality control
Under the Telecommunications Act 1984, the Director General is responsible for promoting the interests of consumers with regard to price, quality and variety of services. BT used to publish its own information about quality of service before it was privatised but stopped after it was privatised. It became the Director General’s duty to collect and publish information for the consumers independently of the telecommunications operators.
Quality of service in the eighties was very much concerned with tariffs and charges, delays in providing new services, contractual liability and delivering improved services through a modernised network, ie, directory enquiries. The regulator with his advisory committee conducted a number of surveys and publicised documents regarding the quality of service in the telecoms sector. Soon after the telecommunication operators responded with their own publications and signing of codes of conducts either on their own initiative or by invitation of Oftel, ie, during 1986, both Cellnet and Racal-Vodafone published their codes of practice for consumers affairs after consultation with Oftel.
Oftel received a number of complaints about the size of domestic telephone bills during 1986. This issue was overcome with the provision of itemised bills. In 1986, a number of people complained about recorded message services and the ‘Talkabout’
chat line service. BT moved to meet these complaints by establishing a Code of Practice for service providers including arrangements for complaints to be referred to an independent panel and for service to be discontinued to providers who failed to accept the verdict of the panel (Oftel, Annual Report, 1986). In September 1986, the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Services (ICSTIS) was established to supervise the standards of telephone information and entertainment services provided by telecommunications operators. The role of ICTIS was to provide safeguards for the telephone user regarding the content of recorded message services, to monitor services regularly and to respond to complaints. A survey conducted by the Director General in 1986 showed that there was no deterioration of quality of service since privatisation began. The Director General attributed most of the complaints Oftel had received during this year to the modernisation of the network. Improvement in performance was expected to improve when the network was fully modernised. Oftel published in 1987 the first quality of service indicators’ report. This showed that calls had mostly failed because of plant defect or lack of capacity, speed of operator response, incidence of faults and speed of fault repair. The same year BT responded with the publication of performance indicators for some of the key service areas.
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Quality of service was boosted in 1989 and the 1990’s. In the case of fault repairs in September 1989, 86% of faults were repaired within one working day, compared to 65% the previous year. BT also introduced its compensation plan regarding fault repairs and new exchange lines. Customers were given a firm date for the supply of new exchange lines and for fault repairs. When these targets had not been met, a minimum of £5 per working day was paid in compensation, whereas higher amounts could be claimed where financial loss was demonstrated, up to £1000 in the case of residential customers and £5000 in the case of business.
During 1990 BT had reached its target of offering itemised bills on 90% of exchange lines in London and 50% of exchange lines in the rest of the country. Itemised bills helped to reduce the number of billing disputes and increased customer’s confidence in bills (Oftel, 1990).
Oftel retained quality controls at the forefront of its agenda during the nineties. The regional Advisory Committees in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales assisted Oftel with investigation of complaints and enquiries made by consumers in their regions. By the end of 1999, Oftel had received 85,451 complaints by consumers an increase of 60% since 1998. This figure reflected an increasingly aware and critical public regarding the services made available to them. Consumers were particularly concerned with mobile services and the difficulties in registering or topping up a pre-pay phone.75
Other social and environmental policy issues
Regulation in the telecommunications sector has favoured not only economic but also social and environmental policy objectives. Over the years, regulation of the sector has attempted to strike the balance between the economic interests of the market players and social policy interests.
Oftel and the Advisory Committees (see next section) which represent consumer interests have been actively involved in resolving disputes between consumers and operators, examining the accuracy of itemised bills, allowing for number portability and obliging telecoms operators to offer universal access to consumers.
The universal service provision came to ensure that telecommunication services, which were used by the majority of people, would be made available to everybody upon reasonable request, and at an affordable price. BT and Kingston Communications, were bounded by their licences to provide a telephone line on reasonable request; to make available special tariff packages to assist those people with special social needs, particularly those on low incomes, in order to obtain basic telephony; and to establish disconnection procedures which provide people with adequate opportunities to pay bills. BT introduced different user schemes for
75 More information regarding consumer complaints can be found in Oftel (1999), Consumer Complaints made to Oftel, December.
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residential and business customers in order to ensure that low-income families could have access to a telephone.7677
As regards the environmental policy of the telecommunications sector, the Department of Transport, Local Government and Regions (DTLR) is responsible for the planning policy of telecommunications. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for health and safety legislation and enforcement of it.
The environmental impact of the telecommunications sector is mostly associated with the sector’s infrastructure such as radio masts, towers, antennas, radio equipment, poles and overhead wires. On the 21st August 2001, the government announced its planning policy, which aims to facilitate the growth of the telecommunications systems whilst keeping the environmental impact of the sector to the minimum.
Accordingly, local authorities have been encouraged to approve proposals for telecommunications development, providing they were aware of the technical specifications and constraints of individual applications, and considered each proposed development as being part of a national network. Areas of high environmental importance should be safeguarded during the planning process. In order to limit visual intrusion, the sharing of masts and sites has been strongly encouraged by the planning policy as well as the use of existing building for the siting of new antennas (DTRL, 2001).78
The heavy use of mobile phones and the presence of base stations’ transmission centres close to residences are believed to have an adverse effect on human health.
Mobile phones and their stations transmit and receive signals using electromagnetic waves often referred to as electromagnetic fields (EMFs). A growing concern is that exposure of humans to radio waves could cause the heating of tissues as well as side effects like headaches, depression, stress and long term effects such as cancer. The Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP) conducted a study on government’s behalf of the effects of mobile phones, bases stations and transmitters on human health (IEGMP, 2000).79 The study recommends a precautionary principle with regard to the use of mobile phone technologies until more scientific evidence is available. Based on the study’s findings, the government requires that emissions from mobile phones base stations should comply with the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) guidelines for public exposure.80
76 In August 1989, BT introduced a low user scheme, under which BT guaranteed to limit rentals to a minimum of 60% of normal rentals so that the low-income users could also afford to have a telephone, ie, in 1989 the quarterly rental for residential lines was £13.95, for business lines £22.55, and for residential customers with low telephone usage a quarterly rental of up to £4.32 was granted. See British Telecom (1989), Form 20-F, Annual Report.
77 In 1991, Oftel determined BT to replace its Lower User Scheme with a better one. Supportline was the new scheme introduced by BT in September 1991 to ensure that the rebalancing of prices did not create a burden on the poorest customers. BT also responded to the new price cap by restructuring its tariffs offering discounts of the standard unit fee for high volume users and by introducing optional tariff packages for business users.
78 DTLR (2001), Planning Policy Guidance Note 8: Telecommunications, August.
79 IEGMP (2000), Mobile Phones and Health, May.
80 As expressed in the EU Council Recommendation of 12 July 1999 on the limitation of exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields (0 Hz to 300GHz). See Official Journal EC, L199, 59 (1999/519/EC).
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Consumer and industry interest groups
A number of groups and committees have been established to represent the interests of consumers and industry in the telecommunications sector. These committees have been established under governmental or industry’s initiative and are discussed below.
The Telecommunications Act 1984 established the Advisory Committees to represent the consumer interests in the telecommunications industry (Section 54). These committees are independent of the Office of Telecommunications but they report to the Director General on any matter covered by Oftel’s responsibilities. Currently, there are six Advisory Committees divided into country and special interests committees. The members of these Committees are appointed directly by the Secretary of State while the members of the special interests committees are appointed by the Director General. The Advisory Committees are as follows:
The Country Committees:
Consumer Communications for England, the English Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (CGE)
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Northern Ireland Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (NIACT) Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (SACOT)
Welsh Advisory Committee on Telecommunications (WACT) The Special Interest Committees:
Communications for Business, the Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for Business (CfB)
Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for Disabled and Elderly People.
(DIEL)
Oftel’s Consumer Panel was established in 1984 under the Telecommunications Act 1984 with the primary task to advise the Director General on the price control of BT.
However, over the years, the panel has extended its role in ensuring that consumer interests are represented in every project undertaken by Oftel. During the nineties the panel has advised Oftel on the future numbering scheme in the UK, future price controls, universal services obligations of operators with significant market power (SMP), and the introduction of digital broadcasting and the converge of telecommunications.
This year Oftel has announced the creation of a Telecommunications Ombudsman responsible for resolving disputes between consumers and telecommunications operators and raising consumer awareness of their rights. The scheme is expected to be place by April 2002, and is discussed further in Chapter 5.
The Network Interoperability Consultative Committee (NICC) was established in 1992 to address the technical issues associated with network competition, to provide advice to Oftel and produce technical specifications and Codes of Practice for the industry, ie, interconnection standards. Members of the committee are network operators, public exchange manufacturers, private systems and terminal equipment suppliers, service providers and users.
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The Operator Policy Forum (OPF) was established in 1998 by Oftel to provide licenced operators with the opportunity to discuss developments in regulatory policy in the UK and European telecommunications sector. The forum deals with a variety of issues from carrier pre-selection and number portability to number translation services and personal number portability.