TalkTalk Hampers BT, Sky and Virgin Media’s Voluntary Compensation Code
A second attempt by three of the United Kingdom’s largest broadband ISPs to secure a new Voluntary Code of Practice for handling Automatic Compensation, which would be paid during a total loss of service, is being disrupted by TalkTalk’s refusal to sign-up.
Last month saw Ofcom unveil their chosen proposal for a new mandatory system of Automatic Compensation for protracted losses of broadband service, which at the same time rejected a softer voluntary proposal from BT, Sky Broadband and Virgin Media (here).
At the time the regulator said of the voluntary proposal: “We do not think that the industry proposal sufficiently meets our concerns when quality of service falls short.” Since then the big ISPs have been attempting to improve upon their proposal but The Telegraph reports that TalkTalk has refused to sign-up, with the provider allegedly preferring a system set by Ofcom
John Petter, CEO of BT’s Consumer Division, said:
“The industry needs to get its act together. There’s one provider that’s resisting this, it’s Talk Talk. If there’s anyone here from Talk Talk, please come on board and back the code of practice please.”
Ofcom expects to set out their final position on the new system by the end of 2017 and it may then take another year before it can be introduced, which is partly because the plan will require significant internal changes to existing admin systems. TalkTalk has decline to give an official comment.
However, consumers could face a bigger annual hike in some of their service prices than usual. The regulator has estimated that its plan would mean up to 2.6 million additional customers could receive up to £185m in compensation payments each year.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Yeah so if Open Reaxh or the ISP can’t fix their own equipment, we the consumer get to pay even more for the pleasure and then get it given back… capitalism at its finest.
I think the utterly spineless Ofom should be scrapped and retired! Another wonderful idea that we will all end up paying for, I see the line rental is going up again… what ever happened to the crackdown on that?
Under consultation with Ofcom for people to send in their feedback. Deadline for feedback is early May. After that they will consider the responses and publish their decision / findings. Plus that “crackdown” only affects “land line only” contracts – such as those people who have land line only with BT and no broadband, or possibly broadband with another provider (such as AAISP).