Rob Inglis wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Apr 1999, Alan Day wrote:
>
> > Seen my sig. No local ISP`s her either. Two things could happen -
> > there could be a special no. as in 0845 or a larger LOCAL area for rural
> > areas such as the Highlands, parts of Wales, Dumfries & Galloway ie an
> > ISP could cover the whole of the highlands and access to it would only
> > be charged as local/ or unmetered if you have paid for it.
>
> How would this work though? AFAIK there would be no way to stop people in
> Manchester, say, from phoning the special Highland number at a local
> rate. Or am I missing something? I support the ideas wholeheartedly, but
> cannot see it happening in John O' Groats that quickly. BT only upgraded
> the exchange to digital in July of last year, around 5 years after the
> rest of the country. The lines can still be pretty dodgy too, although the
> new exchange made a huge difference.
>
Well, local ISP`s will not spring up over night, but fairly quickly
non-the-less. Other people would have local access to ISP so would not
need to use the 0845 no. Hopefully :)
Demon & U-net ect still have there local access no.s available in most
big towns.
> > BT has 84% market share and charges all "interconnect" charges by the
> > minute. ie if a cable & wireless customer phones you, BT charge cable &
> > wireless by the minute - therefore per minute charging filters down to
> > ALL consumers no matter the supplier since BT has 84%. In the US
> > operators pay x amount for x amount of bandwidth.
>
> I see your point again. I often wondered why the UK telephone lines
> weren't taken over by a neutral company and then leased to the telecomms
> companies when the telephone network was privitised. There is a company
> that owns the national grid and charges the electricity companies for
> their use of it on an equal basis, meaning that no company has an
> advantage. BT however own the lines and can try to discourage people from
> using other companies through this, even though there is supposed to be
> regulation by OFTEL. That's life, eh?
>
It`s funny you say that. OFTEL are supposed to publish a prelimanary
paper fairly soon regarding the "local loop unbundling" which is
scheduled for 1.1.2001. (not soon enough I say). They presented 5
options. BT favours option 5 whereby it retains ownership and nearly
all control of the local loop while other providers and ISP`s ect veer
more towards option 1. (It is all on the CUT site & OFTEL site)
However this is mostly a cop-out by OFTEL. CUT were asked to submit a
response to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade & Industry in
response to OFTELS suggested 5 options. CUT came up with option 0 (and
more). This effectively takes away control of the local loop from BT
and creates a "railtrack" type organisation. Although learning from
railtracks mistakes - ie it would be jointly owned and funded by all the
telco`s, whereas railtrack was an independent company which had to turn
a profit. This would effectively make a communal local loop available
to all providers.
Alan
