When you consider that in the last year almost 3 million United Kingdom consumers were unable to resolve problems with their home phone or broadband provider in less than 12 weeks you can easily see why new regulation was needed. New regs will give Ofcom the power to enforce their decisions in the way of fines and deadlines given to any UK provider falling under their jurisdiction. Very few UK home phone landline users are aware that there are currently two very efficient free agencies available to assist them with telecoms problems. These are, CISAS and Otelo. Both of these offices serve the public by acting as intermediaries in disputes. Until recently these agencies were hampered in that they might suggest actions to the telecommunications companies but those suggestions lacked force. Still over half of the disputes taken to these agencies were resolved to the consumer’s satisfaction as opposed to a mere 9% of those disputes in which a compromise was attempted directly by the consumer to the provider.
Take for example a simple problem with a landline connection. The customer asks for a callout because the line has severe static noise. The provider informs them that the noise is from their internal lines and thus they are not at fault. If the consumer does not have the means to verify this how can they clear the noise from the phone line? Invariably they must pay a callout charge to a third party repairman, who informs them that the source of the static is at the street cabinet. How do they possibly get refunded for the error in diagnosis? They can’t, however the liaison agency could have forced the provider to first physically check their system.