UK CSPs sign-up to empty Ofcom ‘fairness’ initiative

Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, has persuaded all major UK communications service providers to promise to ‘put fairness first’.

As far as empty, ill-defined and vacuous statements of intent goes this is right up there. Ofcom drafted a bunch of commitments under the heading ‘Fairness for Customers’, and got CSPs to sign on the dotted line. Of course they had no choice but to go along with the scheme as failure to do so would have resulted in catastrophic publicity, but there is little to indicate this is anything more than a token gesture.

You may be thinking the angle taken in this piece is a tad mean-spirited but let’s have a look at the substance of the announcement. The starting point has to be the operative term ‘fair’ Here are some dictionary definitions:

By these definitions all CSPs have committed to is to treat all their customers equally. If there was any evidence of them actively discriminating against any of them we would surely have heard of it by now so, as a fresh commitment, it’s totally redundant.

More likely is that Ofcom is using a definition of the word not supported by the major dictionaries, but popular among politicians, marketing professionals and small children. This is a catch-all concept designed to appeal to absolutely everyone by implying everything will be better as a result of becoming more fair.

Still think we’re being too harsh? Let’s have a look at the actual commitments then.

Points 1, 2 and 6 depend entirely on the ill-defined term ‘fair’, while the other three are merely restatements of obligations already imposed on CSPs by Ofcom, so what is new here? We asked Ofcom how it will be monitoring these ‘new’ commitments and what the consequences will be of any failures to adhere to them and got the following statement.

“Many of the commitments are already underpinned by existing consumer law and Ofcom’s rules, so we will monitor practices against those and we can take action where necessary. We will also monitor complaints we receive from customers – particularly on price and service quality. The providers will be asked to demonstrate their performance on fairness and we’ll publish a progress report next year.

“Where we have concerns about an industry practice that isn’t covered by existing rules, we will work with the relevant company to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. If we don’t see sufficient action, we will consider potential changes to our rules.”

The condensed version of that statement seems to be; “We’re keeping an eye on UK operators to make sure they’re following our rules.” While that’s good to know, it’s also kind of the default position for telecoms regulator isn’t it? The progress report next year will be worth reading, if only to finally see how Ofcom measures fairness.

“I welcome the commitments the providers have made, and the action they’re taking to ensure customers are treated fairly every step of the way,” said Ofcom Chief Exec Sharon White. “Great service cannot be optional. It has to be the norm. That hasn’t always happened in the past in broadband and mobile services, but there is now a growing belief from providers that putting customers first is paramount.”

“I’m pleased that all the major telecoms providers have signed up to Ofcom’s commitments today,” said UK Minister for Digital Margot James. “They will not only help consumers get fairer deals, but will support competition by making sure providers work to the same objectives and compete on standards.”

Possibly inspired by all this vague virtue-signalling, Virgin Media has announced its own promise to be a good CSP from now on. Specifically it takes the form of a new ‘service promise’ that will give unlimited mobile connectivity to anyone whose broadband stops working, so long as they get both from Virgin.

“We know how important it is for our customers to stay connected and that’s why Virgin Media’s new service promise offers peace of mind, no matter what happens,” said Jeff Dodds, Managing Director of Virgin Media.

“It’s a simple, transparent and straight-up commitment to our customers that we’ll keep them online with superfast unlimited 4G mobile data if they experience an issue with their broadband, plus they have the option of a next-day engineer appointment to get things fixed.”

We guess all these vows, pledges and oaths are better than nothing but only just. Furthermore if everyone’s suddenly promising to put the customer first then surely that implies they weren’t previously. The Ofcom thing just feels like a cheap way for regulators and politicians to make it look like they’re doing more than they are, using vague terms and obsolete aspirations. That doesn’t seem fair to us.