asked Her Majesty's Government:
What guidance they have issued to the telecommunications industry on (a) what is an acceptable time frame for the repair of a pensioner's telephone line, and (b) the provision of broadband-enabled telephone lines in isolated areas. [HL4122]
Guidance to the telecommunications industry is a matter for the independent regulator, the Office of Communications (Ofcom).
The Communications Act 2003 enables Ofcom to impose general conditions of entitlement for customers on specified classes of communications providers. General condition 15 requires communication providers which are providing publicly available telephone services to provide certain special services for their customers who have a disability. General condition 15.5 requires such providers to “provide a priority fault repair service as swiftly as practicable to any subscriber with disabilities who has a genuine need for an urgent repair. Charges for a priority fault repair service shall not exceed the communication provider's standard charge for a fault repair service”. In other words, there already is a mandatory urgent fault repair service for vulnerable and at-risk users.
In the case of BT, this service is provided to customers with a long-term illness or disability who are unable to leave the house unaided and whose telephones are a vital lifeline. The process for registering for the priority fault repair is simple and does not require a doctor's letter. The time to become registered is usually one day from the time an order is received. A confirmation letter is sent to the customer by the following day. There are currently approximately 180,000 customers registered with this service. The general condition does not specify a target time within which faults will be dealt with.
Registration with priority fault repair means that when customers report a fault on their line the adviser will be alerted to the fact they have the service and BT will prioritise the fault accordingly. The service does not have guaranteed response times, but does ensure that repairs for these customers go to the top of the queue. BT's targets are that faults requiring an engineer are cleared within two days; faults that do not require an engineer are targeted to be cleared within four days.
BT also offers customers a free divert to a number of their choice for the duration of the fault, and £1 a day towards the cost of their calls.
There are currently no obligations placed on broadband providers to supply broadband nationally. But we do have a universal service obligation (USO) in the UK for basic telephony and functional internet access. The scope of the universal service obligation is defined by the EC universal services directive 2002/22/EC (“USD”), which is put into UK law by the Communications Act 2003. Universal service ensures that basic fixed line and functional internet access are available at an affordable price to all citizen-customers across the UK.
The latest Ofcom figures reveal that broadband is available to more than 99 per cent of UK households. Thirty-seven per cent of households can choose between four wholesale broadband providers, 8 per cent can choose between three wholesale providers, 12 per cent between two wholesale providers and the remainder can access a BT wholesale offering. At the retail level, consumers have access to a very wide choice of retail broadband products provided by more than 60 internet service providers currently operating in the UK.
The EU Commission is reviewing the scope and future of universal service next year and we expect a Green Paper to be published in the autumn, on which we will consult widely in preparing our response.