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Representing the Business Communications Industry ISSUE 55 - DECEMBER 2012
bulletin Federation ofCommunicationServices
Membership meansbetter value in 2013FCS membership just became better value for members who dobusiness with small companiesemploying fewer than 10 people:thanks to a new deal with CISAS,you can get an Ofcom-registered Alternative Dispute Resolutionservice for nothing from next year.
As long as you’re an FCS member whose turnover is lessthan £20m, you can now enroll (orrenew) on the CISAS ADR schemeat no cost as of January 2013, the beginning of the nextFCS subscription year. This benefit will continue as long asyou remain in FCS membership.
CISAS are also offering FCS members a reduced rate ontheir commercial mediation, adjudication and arbitrationservices, to help resolve claims in excess of the £5k ceilingwhich is set for the ADR schemes. Referring disputes to aqualified ADR professional upon agreement of both partiescan be a timely and cost-efficient alternative to both sidesbriefing solicitors and slugging it out in court. So FCS ispleased to be able to offer savings on this additional serviceto our members.
“We know a number of FCS members have a preference forthe Ombudsman Services’ telecoms ADR scheme,” saysFCS chief executive Chris Pateman. “We don’t think it’sFCS’s role to tell our members how they should run theirbusiness, so there’s no question of this-or-that ADR schemebecoming a condition of membership: FCS continues towork closely with both the Ombudsman Services and CISASto ensure our members get the best possible value, thattheir views are fully expressed, and that best practice isshared across the industry.”
For further details of the scheme, or to compliance-checkyour company’s current consumer code of practice, callLaura Beard at the FCS office – 020 8249 [email protected].
Chris Pateman, FCS CEO
Bob Stewart MP
When you’ve commanded troops in places like Bosnia, you understand the value of secure and resilient one-to-manyradio communications. So FCS’s local MP, Bob Stewart DSO has lent a willing ear and enthusiastic supportto our campaign to ring-fence radio spectrum for the use of Britain’s critical national infrastructure.
Col Stewart, whose Beckenham constituency includes FCS head office, spent an hour with FCS director Adrian Grilli and chief executive Chris Pateman, getting up to speed with this crucial issue. Mr Grilli’s Joint Radio Companymanages radio spectrum for the electricity utilities, and he chairs the FCS Critical National Infrastructure group. So he was able to share from first-hand experience the importance for utilities’ investment decisions of being able to relyupon sufficient radio spectrum to meet their future requirements.
“Bob Stewart is clearly a man of action,” said Adrian. “He grasped the issues very quickly, and he immediately gave us a very useful pincer movement plan of action: FCS briefs civil servants while he tackles the Minister. We look forward to working with him to ensure the vital principle of reserving spectrum for CNI is written into DCMS policy well before the next round of ‘4G’ auctions.”
The long-running and controversial dispute with Openreach over retrospective charges on CPs for six-year-old BT special phonebook entries appears to be over.
FCS members have emerged with what chief negotiator MichaelEagle described as an ‘acceptable compromise’: everythingprior to 2011 has now been written off by BT, and we have received a useful and welcome statement on the issue of refunds for current year’s entries that customers either didn’torder or no longer want.
BT has advised that it will not allow immediate cancellationwhere the customer no longer requires the service. However,where the CP or end user challenges the special phone bookentry on the basis that they do not believe that they have requested it, then BT will deal with each query on an individualcase by case basis (BT has advised that this will include a check to determine if the CP has selected the option to “retaindirectory entry” on a like for like transfer). On completion of theinvestigation a decision will then be made as to whether or notthe mid term cancellation will attract charges for the remainingduration of that edition of the phone book.
“In view of the quality of records available to BT it seems likelythat such challenges are likely to be successful,” says Michael.“We advise members to raise challenges on any cases of thistype.”
Some further unbilled items, relating to Bold Entries, have beenidentified as part of the tidy-up process. Where customers nolonger require these entries, they will be cancelled and no retrospective or ongoing charges will be made. However, wherethe customer does want to continue with the entry, a retrospective charge of up to 3 months will be made(i.e. relevant billing for the period from September will appear on the CP’sDecember invoice).
FCS pressure finally yields‘acceptable’ compromiseon Special Phone Book entries
Colonel Bob embraces CNI spectrum campaign
INSIDE: BR12, CP12, New standard for billing, FITAS and more!
December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
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FCS and Arqivapioneer ‘fast-track’accreditation forvehicle installers
FCS tackles the mobile elephant in the EU’s room
FCS and Arqiva are pioneering aradical new learning and developmentprogramme which shrinks six months’installer training into two days. Themove means experienced installerscan complete all the training for FITASaccreditation for installing radio-frequency equipment in vehicles (toFCS1362) by spending two days inthe classroom. Up until now, the onlyavailable option has been six monthsor more of private course-book studyand distance-learning.
The new course is the result of Arqiva’s input into
a roots-up review of the FITAS accreditation
scheme, undertaken by FCS earlier this year.
“We wanted to make sure FITAS was offering the
trade what it really needs,” says FITAS scheme
manager Jason McComb. Long-standing
supporters like Premier and Emobile are proof
that the distance learning scheme works well.
But there are also excellent installers who don't
feel comfortable with the self-study approach. So
we started looking at alternative ways of
delivering the same training.
“Arqiva liked the idea of a concentrated two day
course from the moment we first discussed it
with them. Their willingness not only to back the
concept, but to champion it to their installer
partners, gave FCS the confidence to invest in
making the fast-track course a reality. We’re
delighted, now, that the
first two cohorts through
the two-day course will all
be Arqiva partners.”
FCS is urging European regulators to subject mobile phone companies to greater scrutiny or risk serious market distortions as the EU communicationsmarket converges.
“The entry of the mobile phone operators into the fixed telephony market has
the potential to seriously threaten free competition,” says FCS deputy chairman
Dave Dadds, who chairs the influential FCS Industry Forum.
“The mobile operators already have a long history of engaging in litigation with
Ofcom and the other regulators across Europe, at a level of cost and complexity
which would be completely unsupportable by their SME competitors. And the
availability of 4G functionality will strengthen the mobile operators’ market
position still further, in areas which are simply not available to the fixed line
market operators.
“FCS is arguing for some urgent guidance from BEREC, the pan-European
regulators group, to help regulators deal with oligopolies. Given the litigious
nature of the relationships at national level, we believe this work can only
effectively be carried out at EU-level.”
There is growing evidence the conventional technology-by-technology approach
to regulation has been overtaken by events, says the FCS submission. The new
generation of mobile market-makers are highly commercially astute international
operators who have achieved high levels of customer penetration. Rather than
risk being found in ‘Significant Market Power’ (SMP) positions by further
consolidation within this vertical sector, they are now moving strongly into a
broader horizontal portfolio of bundled products right across the market place.
Both in Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business segments.
Compared with fixed-line products, where principles of equivalence are well
established, wholesale access to mobile calls is generally far harder for small
communications providers to obtain. Which means most business-to-business
communications providers are forced to purchase wholesale mobile access via
a third-party aggregator. So margins are low, there is no direct control over
product development, and the provision of mobile calls is often regarded as a
‘service’ element of the package the provider offers his customer.
On the other hand, mobile phone companies are free to offer attractive mobile
tariffs to potential business customers, and to bundle them with wholesale fixed
line products whose prices are already freely available in the market.
“Without urgent action to ensure a transparent, equivalent and price-efficient
wholesale market in the mobile segment, we fear BEREC’s current work on the
fixed line market may be overtaken by events,” says Dave Dadds.
“A simple definition of SMP as 50%-plus of a market doesn’t allow for the
opportunities for anti-competitive behaviour among three or more operators.
One example is the way UK mobile phone operators all moved in 2001 from
gaining-provider led number porting to a losing-provider led regime, just at a
time when Three was attempting to enter the market. This losing-provider led
approach is still in place today in spite of the evidence right across Europe of
consumer preference for gaining-provider led”.
In-car digital radio campaigners are pinning theirgrowth-hopes on an animated short-house soul-man this winter. ‘D-Love’has already started spreadinghis retro vibes and ice-coollistening preferences on TVand radio, encouraging driversto install new digital in-car kit.And FCS will be riding on his leopard-skin coat tails with themessage that buying goodquality hi-fi is only half thestory: if you want to enjoymellow mellow vibes while the heated rearscreen is on, better get the job done properly,sweet cheeks: use a FITAS-accredited installer.Spread the word. Spread the love!
Motown midget champions DAB
December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
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December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
Industry sets a new standard for billing records
Five of the UK’s largest independent billing vendors have pulled off the impossible: they have come upwith a way to make billing easier and more consistent without interfering in CPs’ choice of commercialpartners or restricting the way individual providers go about their business
Is a report for a CP with RID code RID for a single call from customer account reference AAAAA made in the month ending
31/01/13. The call is a voice call from a fixed line 01999 887000. The number 01732 353495 was dialled on January 28 2013
10.37.23, and the call lasted for a total of 233 seconds. The number called is at Hampton, the billing rate for the call is UK Local,
and the Peak time band applies. This rate is charged at 0.8p per second, and no bundle discount applies. The caller’s extension
is 654, and his direct-dial number is 01999 887665. The carrier was TalkTalk, the bill attracts standard rate VAT and the CDR
provider’s unique internal reference is 77879. The number of blank fields (“”) can be used to contain additional data for mobile
data calls, refunds or country of origin data, or for recording ring-times or diverted number details.
Typical file format:
AKJ, Nine Group, eBillz, PRD and Union Street between them
provide the billing platforms for a large proportion of the
channel’s resellers. And all have now agreed in principle to
offer their customers the choice to output wholesale CDRs in
a consistent format from next year -- using a common standard
which will be administered for the whole industry under the
umbrella of FCS.
“The UK telecoms market has matured over the years,” says
Tony Cook of Union Street, acting chairman of the new FCS
Billing Group. “So we now have a myriad of wholesale service
providers to the telecoms channel.
“The lack of any standards for CDRs has resulted in every
supplier providing billing data in their own unique format. With
more and more new entrants to the market (for example hosted
and SIP providers), there are literally hundreds of inconsistent
CDR formats in existence.”
This creates a big headache for Communication Providers who
need to receive and process these billing CDR files. Each new
service requires them to interpret the data, and modify their
billing platform to support the new CDRs. The specifications of
many of these CDR files are not properly documented and
open to different interpretation. This can result in hassle and
time delays and even billing errors.
Having to write and re-write input processes to allow billing
systems to receive CDR files in different formats from each
different carrier slows down product development. It makes the
process of adding new wholesale suppliers more long-winded
and more costly than it needs to be. It’s also a drain
on development resources, since the work has to be individually
duplicated by each individual billing provider.
“Without doubt, the industry has been crying out for a standard for
CDRs for a long time,” says Tony Cook. “Once the new standard is
rolled out, any wholesale provider who adopts it will find it much
easier for CPs to do business with them as the CDRs will
immediately be importable by most of the major billing platforms.
Over time CPs will have to make little or no modification to their
billing platforms in order to receive CDRs in the standard format.”
The launch version of the standard was signed off at the
Convergence Summit South exhibition at Sandown Park on
October 3. The industry should expect to start seeing it being
implemented in the first quarter of 2013.
FCS are keen to maintain this as an open standard for the whole
industry. If you are interested in joining the Billing Group, or being
kept up to date on developments, please contact Laura at the FCS
office: 0208 249 6363; [email protected].
RID_Monthly_Calls_AAAAA_31012013_SEQNUMBER_RECRDCOUNT_V1.txt”v”,”0”,”01999887000”,”01732353495”,”280120
13”,”10:37:23”,”233”,””,””,”Hampton”,”UKLocal”,”Peak”,”0.8”,”0.8”,”654”,”01999887665”,””,”UKL”.”TalkTalk”,””,”S”,””,””,””
,””,””,””,””,”77879”
Tim Barclay, Managing Director Sales and Customer Experience, Openreach
December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
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Communications: Yesterday, today and forever
“The pace of change has never been faster.People are looking to the channel for answers.So decide what you are good at and find people to help. Start here! The future of ourindustry belongs to those who build skills, seekalliances and stay positive.”
“Component thinking becomes holistic andstrategic thinking; data centre capable becomescloud capable; quality of service becomes less important than quality of experience; video capable becomes ‘TelePresence’ capable;ISDN30 moves to SIP trunking and approaches to architecture change from inside-out to outside-in. Customer satisfaction drives every-thing.”
Stu Smith, Portfolio Architect, Kcom
“We are on the threshold of a new qualification for the industry, enabling businesses to ‘grow their own’ engineers andcustomer service people within a nationally-recognised framework.”
Ann Potterton, Chief Executive, Institute of Telecommunications Professionals
Gregg, Hunt, Managing Director, CISAS
Andy Morris, Service and Operations Director, Gamma
Nigel Sergent, Editorial Director, Comms Dealer magazine
“Success looks different for a business customer: we have to be much more joinedup in that supply chain. As an industry,working with Openreach, we need to extract measurements that reflect business users. The underlying objective isto reduce the cost of failure across the supply chain.”
“Openreach has 533 customers in total. Probablyonly 20-30 deal direct with the consumer marketbut they represent 80%-plus of our volume ofwork. The number of Openreach customers isskewed massively towards business. But the totalvolume of work is skewed massively towardsconsumer. So what are the really concrete thingswe can do together that will have the biggest impact?”
“Membership of the CISAS alternative disputeresolution scheme will now be free of charge toFCS members from January next year... use ofCEDR’s professional mediation, adjudicationand arbitration services will be available at specially reduced rates to FCS members.”
Business leaders attending this year’s FCS Comms Provider industry summitcertainly went home with plenty to thinkabout.
The whole market’s going to changebeyond recognition within five years.But at least the industry now has thewherewithal to train its owntechnicians, rather than relying onhead-hunting the products of the BTapprenticeship scheme.
Openreach service levels are awful.But at least they are engaging withthe industry as never before to agreejoint ways of concentrating effort andmeasuring performance for the vitalbusiness-to-business sector
Fraud is widespread, pervasive andcostly. But at least the industry istaking it seriously, sharing informationand working towards best practicesolutions for managing customersand cutting fraudsters off fromsources of revenue.
Ofcom are underway with 12 marketreviews, touching on just about everyaspect of the fixed-line market. Butat least the policy direction is alreadyset: if the comms market of thefuture expects the regulator to takeaction to protect existing businessmodels, the onus will be on CPs toprovide evidence that consumers arenot enjoying the benefits they should.
Billing is getting simpler and moreefficient thanks to an agreed commonstandard among billing providers. Butat worst the fuzzy wording of the draftEU General Data ProtectionRegulation and the UK’s own draft UKCommunications Data Bill threaten toforce new costs and newresponsibilities on to the industry.
Many thanks to Eversheds for hostingCP12 in their city of Londonauditorium.
Couldn’t make it? You missed out! But you can still see the speakers’ presentations at the CP12 page on the FCS website.
http://www.fcs.org.uk/Events/CommsProvider.aspx
December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
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December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
“We in the UK were focused dramatically in
1996 by Hanrattry’s IRA cell, planning to
take out six transformer stations around
London. We’re much more focused now on
what we’re protecting. Not specific to
sector, but seeking out single points of
failure.”
Spectrum re-emerged in the presentation
from Paul Jarvis of Ofcom, who high-
lighted that future spectrum requirements
for blue light operators are moving
increasingly to transmitting data packets
alongside traditional voice-over services.
“Talking to business radio dealers about
spectrum shortages is only confirming what
everybody already knows. The interesting
stuff comes when you start talking about
how to get more out of the spectrum you’ve
already got. And particularly when you start
adding functionalities which allow you to sell
some new enhancement to your cutomers.”
Christine Cant from Tait concentrated on
the issues of migrating existing
customers from analogue to digital
systems by making everything look and
feel the same – right down to the repeater
stations (take out three old components;
put three new ones in, put the cover back
in place and you’re suddenly digital).
Andy Woodhall from Simoco referred to the
company’s long radio heritage (the old PYE
radio brand of the 1950s) and observed that
“as an industry we can no longer think of
ourselves as a stand-alone radio supplier.
We have to offer applications to our
customers and solid IP architecture.”
Jeff Spaeth from Motorola asked “What is
the value proposition that will cause
customers to continue to choose
business radio in the future? It’s down to
four Cs: Coverage, Cost, Control and
Capacity.”
MK Wong of Hytera gave delegates a
glimpse of the clever value-adds being
incorporated into the next generation of
lightweight, slimline handsets and
portable repeater stations and an insight
into the philosophy of Hytera’s
commitment to become a major world
player in every aspect of the market.
And the Fleetcomm double-act of John
Kelly and Sam Hunt demonstrated that in
UK networks, too, innovative approaches
to aerial installation sites and leased
networks can provide economic,
scaleable and flexible solutions to the
changing needs of the radio-user
community.
The day finished with a fascinating insight
from Adrian Streeter of Transport for
London into the way in which radio
frequency communications enabled
London’s bus and underground
infrastructure to cope with the demands
of the Olympic Games.
Event chairman Tim Cull, FCS’s
business radio expert, rounded up the day
with three bullets:
Very encouraged by the future
prospects for the industry
BR IS MOVING FORWARD
We must resolve the spectrum issue
to keep the growth going
The new larger venue of the Hilton Metropole on the National Exhibition Centre complex attracted recordnumbers of both delegates and sponsors to this year’s FCS Business Radio event. And while digital technology was widely recognised as offering major new opportunities to take business radio ‘mainstream’,spectrum availability proved controversial from the off.
Analysys Mason’s newly-published,
taxpayer-funded report for DCMS on the
value of spectrum to the UK economy
was lambasted in FCS CEO Chris
Pateman’s opening remarks for
including comments like ‘Spectrum is a
finite resource, similar to property’ and
‘We have not attempted to calculate the
value of spectrum in public sector use,
largely due to methodological difficulties’.
“Spectrum is absolutely not a resource
similar to property, Mr Pateman said.”
“We can’t just build more of it. It really
doesn’t help our industry’s case when
policy-makers receive messages of this
kind.”
“FCS does have some sympathy with
Analysys Mason about the methodological
difficulties in measuring the value of
spectrum for public sector use. We did the
same job ourselves a couple of years ago,
and we quickly found that once you start
working out the cost to the UK of ports not
operating or trains not running, the figures
get so large, so quickly that they simply
don’t seem credible. But choosing,
instead, to ignore them does not help
balance the arguments when your
government’s default position is to allocate
spectrum via auctions.”
Keynote speaker Nigel Brown, who heads
up the Cabinet Office’s work on assessing
and anticipating the risk to the nation’s
infrastructure from system failure or
terrorist attack confirmed there is no
reserved spectrum for critical national
infrastructure, and no current plans to
reserve any.
BR12: Tuning up for tomorrow’s digital revolution
Couldn’t make it? You missed out! But you can still see the speakers’ presentations at the BR12 page on the FCS website.http://www.fcs.org.uk/Events/BusinessRadio.aspx
December 2012 Federation of Communication Services
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New members FCS is pleased to welcome the following companies that have
recently joined the Federation:
10 May FCS Comms Installer 13 Hilton Metropole, Birmingham
6 February FCS Regional Meeting Bristol (Venue, TBA)
5-6 March MEN Expo Ricoh Stadium, Coventry
13 March FCS Regional Meeting Manchester
24 April FCS Regional Meeting Birmingham
30 April/1 May Convergence Summit Manchester CentralNorth
4-5 June NAPFM Event Telford Exhibition Centre
FCS Events 2013
Wightfibre Telecom Ltd
Safeguard Communications (UK) Ltd
Thomas Eggar LLP
Magrathea Telecommunications Ltd
Watson Farley & Williams LLP
Next IS Limited
Real Wireless Limited
Element Five (Consulting) Ltd
FCS members represent a growing andpowerful voice in the market place. Andthat’s a message worth shouting about.As well as FCS’s own major industryevents – FCS Comms Dealer for the FSPmarket and FCS Business Radio for thePMR community, the team has been carrying the message to the market atlarge, by participating at the Blue Lightexhibition in Peterborough and the Convergence Summit South event atSandown Park.
“Peterborough gave us an excellent opportunity to
showcase FCS’s FITAS installer scheme to
professional fleet buyers from the vital emergency
services sector,” says FITAS scheme manager Jason
McComb. “It’s no good going through a detailed
procurement process, selecting the right kit and
scheduling a vehicle to be off the road for an install if
you end up with an indifferent job that could let your
FCS flies the flag at industry exhibitions
people down at a critical time -- and even put their lives at risk.
“That’s the whole point behind the FCS1362 code of practice for installing
radio equipment into vehicles. And it’s a point public fleet buyers are now
listening to with increasing attention – especially now FITAS is referenced
in government procurement framework documents.”
FCS’s Sandown Park appearance concentrated on reminding resellers how
much their trade association is doing for the industry as a whole. A giant
pop-up of Openreach’s ‘problem statement’, acknowledging the need to
work pro-actively with channel partners to improve their service levels,
proved a real show-stopper, says FCS membership manager Laura Beard.
“Just about everybody who walked past our stand stopped and talked
about the need to improve Openreach service levels – including two people
from Openreach itself! I think the show opened a lot of people’s eyes about
the kind of value FCS delivers for our membership: it’s one thing moaning
quietly and just adjusting your business to work-around other peoples’
inefficiencies. It’s quite another to bring them to the table to address the
issues. This industry can really get things done when it works collectively
and FCS provides the perfect means to do so without having to spend a
fortune or risk being singled out.”
FCS Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham,
Kent BR3 1AT
Tel +44 (0)20 8249 6363 Email [email protected]
FCS bulletin is published by FCS Ltd.
All content is copyright and can only be copied with theexpress permission of the publisher. No liability will beaccepted for any errors or omissions in the text.
Contact us
Laura Beard, Michael Eagle & Chris Pateman on the FCS stand at Convergence Summit South
Chris Pateman & Jason McComb at the Blue Light exhibition
We need as many members as possible involved in
this vital work: If you have an interest in any of the
above, please contact Michael Eagle for more details.
Infrastructure sharing
Changes to GC17 and the numbering plan
White Space devices
Fixed market access reviews
UHF Strategy and infrastructure
Business connectivity market review Payment of costs & expenses in regulatory disputes
FCS is currently preparing industry responses or
engaging in discussions with Ofcom on the
following regulatory issues:
Current policy issues