UK move to put numbering reform on hold

Date: 27/11/1997

By Peter Chapman

EU MEMBER states are set to end a dispute next week over plans to reform the Union's telephone numbering system, which the UK argues will hinder competition.

Diplomatic sources say that London will win the right to argue for a delay in phasing in 'carrier pre-selection' after the January 2000 deadline in a face-saving move to be approved at a meeting of EU telecoms ministers next Monday (1 December).

The UK has been the sole EU opponent of carrier pre-selection, which allows customers to choose in advance the telecom operator they want to use for long-distance calls, without having to dial lengthy extra numbers each time.

It claimed this key part of a broader reform of EU telephone numbering would discourage competition by ending the incentive for alternative telecom operators, such as cable companies, to build or update their own local networks to compete with former monopolists.

But in a move which will please the UK, diplomats now say that ministers will support amendments called for by MEPs giving member states the right to appeal to the European Commission if they believe the rules would impose an 'excessive burden'.

"The deadline as it stands is for the year 2000. But if we feel that we can't or should not meet this deadline, and we can prove to the Commission that it is going to be an excessive burden, we would have a way forward," said a UK diplomat.

"We could take the view that cable companies are going to be harmed by this and give the figures to the Commission. It can then take its own view based on the evidence."

The UK admits the expected decision does not amount to a major negotiating victory, but diplomats say that it will at least "give us the opportunity to argue our case in a different way".

London will win the right to try to delay the day it has to abandon its 'easy access' system, under which customers have to dial often lengthy access codes to leave British Telecom's network to make long-distance calls with cheaper alternative carriers.

The UK argues that customers get tired of dialling the extra numbers required to leave BT and this encourages them to migrate to a different operator for all their calls, local and long distance.

This gives rival companies the necessary incentive to build up their own local networks, because they thereby retain all their customers' calls.

"If customers have an option to change the default setting for long-distance calls to an alternative, but still keep their subscription with BT for local calls, you will reduce the rate at which people will change to alternative carriers for local services such as cable TV networks," said the diplomat.

He added that the problem was likely to become worse when the gap between the charges levied by companies like BT and cut-price long distance specialists narrowed as a result of other international and EU telecom liberalisation rules.

But the Commission argues that the UK system means the cost of long-distance and international calls will stay higher than necessary because customers are put off changing to competing long distance carriers by the need to dial long prefixes.

Even if it wins the right to ask the Commission for more time to make the switch to the carrier pre-selection system favoured by the rest of the EU, the UK will still face an uphill task to actually win this concession.

Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert this week told European Voice that he remained "unconvinced" by the UK's argument, adding that he saw moves to separate telecom operators from cable TV networks as a more likely source of competition in local telecom networks.