Ofcom moves a step closer to a better migration system for the UK

Ofcom is consulting on a series of changes to how moves between telephone
and broadband providers can be made to work better in the UK. The consultation
runs until 23rd April 2012, and it will be a year or more after that before any
changes take place, so if you are changing provider now, carry on as you had
planned.

The new proposals for a variety of migration systems only cover services
using the Openreach copper network, i.e. ADSL, ADSL2+ and FTTC. Fibre to the
Premises, KCom (Karoo) and Virgin Media cable network are outside the scope of
the consultation, but will be addressed in a later document. Ideally FTTP
should have been included in this consultation, since we will start to see more
people wanting to migrate onto that emerging service in the next year or
two.

The impression one gets from reading the Ofcom report is that the market has been allowed to dictate
what process it will use, rather than sticking to the Code of Practices Ofcom
issues. A shocking statistic is that some half a million phone and broadband
customers get slammed a year, and many do not get returned to their old
provider. Even where a customer wanted to move customers are often asked to do
a cease and provide, rather than use a migration process that exists for the
move they are making.

Three main options are being considered by Ofcom:

1. Leave existing processes in place, but tweak to avoid some of the current
   problems.
2. Gaining Provider Led systems, variations range from how you currently
   switch voice providers, through to ones where an independent third party
   confirms a persons intent to switch.
3. Losing provider led, similar to the current MAC system, but with rules in
   place to ensure reactive saves are not possible.

Ofcom appears to be favouring a gaining provider led (GPL) approach, with
the consumers intent to move being confirmed by an independent third party.
This third party will have to funded by communications providers, and how this
is done will be subject to lots of debate for sure. No doubt any costs will be
passed onto the consumer, but if this makes for smoother switching and in
particular can avoid the weeks without broadband many suffer when moving away
from a fully unbundled service (e.g. TalkTalk and Sky) then it will be worth
it. The need for a verification process is because of the amount of slamming
activity that has gone on in the UK.

So it is business as usual, with consumers getting confused by the myriad of
bundles and option with some that are only available in parts of the UK, and
sales staff who often don’t understand the implications involved in switching
onto or away from their service. With another consultation due in Q2/3 of
2012-2013 and a statement on migrations in Q4 2012-2013, any concrete changes
to migration processes are a long way away.