European Telecommunications Boycott: First Objective

London, 12 May 1999

For immediate release

Internet users in thirteen European countries are joining forces to
campaign for fairer telecommunications charges. The following countries
intend to take part in a European Telecommunications Boycott on Sunday 6
June: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Italy,
Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom.

Over the next four weeks we in the Campaign for Unmetered
Telecommunications (CUT), the UK participating campaign, will further
explain the objectives of the Boycott.

Our first objective is "Costs of all telephone calls to more closely
mirror the independently audited cost to telecommunications operators of
providing these calls, as already mandated by EU law."

In this country, people outside the telecommunications industry simply
do not know, and have no way of knowing, what the real costs to a
telecommunications operator are of providing a call. Not even OFTEL
knows: it has considerable powers to obtain information from BT, but the
information is that which BT provides. OFTEL has no remit to verify
whether or not the cost information provided is correct, complete or
even relevant.

We suggest that, first of all, a permanent independent audit of BT and
other telecommunications operators is set up - at the moment OFTEL does
not have a remit even to investigate costs of cable operators - and,
secondly, that the resulting audited costs are made available to anyone
on their signing a non-disclosure agreement.

Given that, for example, a call to a subscription-free ISP can have its
cost to the consumer split several ways between local-loop operators,
trunk operators and the ISP itself, and that all parties in this split
appear, at the moment, to be reasonably happy, we believe that call
costs in this country cannot be closely mirroring real costs.

Note for Editors

Our original press release, announcing the European Telecommunications
Boycott, is at:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/press/pr210499.txt

Contact Details

The united European campaigns' Web site:

http://www.telecom.eu.org/

UK contact:

Erol Ziya
Press Officer, Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
press@unmetered.org.uk

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/

+44 171 681 2831