BT must do more to play fair says Ofcom
Tuesday 11 December 2007
BT has made progress in creating a fair playing field for rival operators in the broadband market, but it must do more, says regulator Ofcom.
Two years ago, BT signed a deal with Ofcom to avoid any fines or company structure interference from the regulators following complaints from users and rivals that it was preventing a fair broadband market.
Although Ofcom has acknowledged that BT has made progress since then by providing cheaper broadband prices and higher broadband speed for users it is now encouraging BT to open up its Openreach service to all providers.
Ofcom are encouraging BT to:
Pay out compensation proactively without any need for Openreach customers to make a claim
Pay out every time service or quality falls below the contractual threshold, instead of paying out against performance stated as an average over time
Continue to pay compensation each time problems persist with no upper limit to the amount which must be paid
Pay addition levels of compensation for failure to activate "live" lines, which are double the amount that BT presently pays.
The deadline for responses to Ofcom's consultation on its Openreach service performance is 25th January 2008.
BT has made progress in creating a fair playing field for rival operators in the broadband market, but it must do more, says regulator Ofcom.
Two years ago, BT signed a deal with Ofcom to avoid any fines or company structure interference from the regulators following complaints from users and rivals that it was preventing a fair broadband market.
Although Ofcom has acknowledged that BT has made progress since then by providing cheaper broadband prices and higher broadband speed for users it is now encouraging BT to open up its Openreach service to all providers.
Ofcom are encouraging BT to:
Pay out compensation proactively without any need for Openreach customers to make a claim
Pay out every time service or quality falls below the contractual threshold, instead of paying out against performance stated as an average over time
Continue to pay compensation each time problems persist with no upper limit to the amount which must be paid
Pay addition levels of compensation for failure to activate "live" lines, which are double the amount that BT presently pays.
The deadline for responses to Ofcom's consultation on its Openreach service performance is 25th January 2008. 