Telecommunications Campaigners Criticise Ministerial Response

London, 15 June 1999

For immediate release

The Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications is highly critical of the
Ministerial response to last Wednesday's House of Commons debate on
'telecommunications regulation and the future of the Internet', and has
prepared an open letter to Michael Wills MP, Minister for
Communications.

Alastair Scott, Moderator of CUT, commented: 'We were very disappointed
with Mr Wills' response. Steve Webb MP, who initiated the debate, made
an excellent speech which covered almost all current issues and made
some very pointed remarks about what could happen in the future. Mr
Wills evaded answering all the questions raised, and we were
particularly surprised by Mr Wills' assertion that that the takeup of
Internet access was not dependent on the cost of that access, when his
own remarks and a mass of other evidence to a Parliamentary Select
Committee Inquiry indicated the opposite, and by his use of OECD access
cost calculations which we had already discredited in our response to an
OFTEL Memorandum submitted to that Inquiry'.

Notes for Editors:

1. The letter to Michael Wills MP is at:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/misc/wills150699.htm

2. The Hansard transcription of the 9 June debate is at:

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/c
m990609/debtext/90609-16.htm [one line]

3. For CUT's comments on OFTEL's use of the OECD figures as part of its
Memorandum to the Trade and Industry Parliamentary Select Committee's
Inquiry into Electronic Commerce, see:

http://www.unmetered.org.uk/reference/resp_310399.htm

4. For the first report of the Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry,
see:

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmselect/c
mtrdind/187/18702.htm [one line]

Contact:

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

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

+44 171 681 2831