Category: Regulation

It seems Ofcom is inviting opinions on what it should be doing with regards to consumer protection within the telecommunications/broadband market.

The Advertising Standards Authority (www.asa.org.uk) has this morning released an adjudication criticising Wanadoo for its advertising claims promoting "up to 8 Meg" broadband services. This ruling will have a significant impact on the entire broadband service industry in regard to claims of higher speed services. A number of complaints were made to the ASA by other ISPs and the public about Wanadoo TV and press advertising which began in October 2005 that used the phrase "Up to 8 Meg [..] Broadband". BT, Tiscali and Bulldog's advertising agency expressed concerns that the advertisements were misleading as they implied that speeds up to 8 Mbps would be available to majority of the audience. Two members of the public also complained specifically about the lack of the high speed service available in their area.

The UK has hit the quarter of a million LLU lines mark.

The Welsh planning authorities have introduced changes to allow two antennas, which includes satellite dishes on a property without the need for planning permission.

It seems that the Advertising Standards Authority has received a number of complaints about the current Wanadoo advertising campaigns.

The Telecommunications Adjudicator has announced his update for December 2005, which shows that LLU is starting to take off.

It is almost two years since the original capacity based pricing was announced, but it seems the actual effects may only have started to be felt in the last few months.

The gap between Christmas and New Year saw the Office of Fair Trading give the green light to the Sky purchase of EasyNet, and the NTL takeover of Telewest.

BT has increased the margin on its Wholesale Line Rental product by raising its own line rental on the Option 1 product by 50p per month.

Following Ofcom's recent re-iteration of its priorities, the Internet Services Providers' Association is reminding ISPs that they are required under General Condition 14 of the Communications Act 2003 to provide an Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) service for their residential and small business customers. Companies failing to comply with this condition could be fined up to 10% of their turnover.