Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications |
News
|
On 9 August 1999 the Trade and Industry Select Committee of the House of Commons published a report entitled simply Electronic Commerce. Although not expected in this form it is, in effect, an extremely welcome supplement to the first Select Committee report entitled Building Confidence in Electronic Commerce, published on 19 May 1999, to which we had made a submission. The policy recommendations of the second Select Committee report outline what the Government and Regulators should do to encourage widespread and effective use of modern connected technologies in this country; they also cover the social implications of these technologies. We are immensely pleased to note that both our submission and that of Tom Long, which we had encouraged him to make, form the backbone to the policy recommendations. Particularly encouraging is the repeated use of the term 'unmetered' in preference to 'free', which was prevalent in the previous report. Although there is nothing forcing OFTEL to order the implementation of unmetered telephony as of now (Select Committees can only recommend and it is for the Goverment to act, or not act, on those recommendations), the report is underpinned throughout by similar sentiments to the statement that the more widespread availability to residential customers of unmetered local telephone calls would give electronic commerce in the UK a substantial boost. The report is scathing of the Government's electronic agenda which is described as characterised by hyperbole, over-optimism ... and repeated failures to learn from past mistakes. Remarks about the Regulator's track record are scarcely more complimentary: OFTEL has been unduly cautious in emphasising the possible disadvantages of unmetered local calls, at the expense of the potential benefits. The key chapter of the 55-page report, entitled Social Issues, quotes at considerable length from the CUT and Tom Long submissions and uses our evidence to undermine what OFTEL said in its two Memoranda to the Select Committee. This is particularly gratifying as it was OFTEL's inadequate and misleading first Memorandum to the Select Committee that sparked off our submission. The recommendations cover much of what we campaign for:
The Government Statistical Service [should] consider how best to develop new statistical measures relating to electronic commerce and to adopt its existing measures to the phenomenon (paragraph 13) So what we campaign for is now a major element of backbench thinking on e-commerce. We await the OFTEL and Governmental responses, and will comment after they are released.
|
[ Home ]
[ About ]
[ Analysis ]
[ Solutions ]
[ Mythbusters ]
[ Get Involved ]
Site design by Richard Sliwa
[ News ]
[ Features ]
[ Reference ]
[ Discussion ]
[ Press ]
[ Diary ]
[ Members ]
[ Contact ]
[ Site Map ]
[ Search ]
[ Links ]
based on an original concept by Runic Design.
© CUT 1999.