Following The Cable Television Association’s complaints to the Office of Telecommunications last month about the proposed network interconnection charges, Mercury Communications Ltd has voiced its own objections to the way in which the network interconnection charges are being calculated. Mercury has requested that the Office reduces the charges it will have to pay for using British Telecom’s network, claiming that Telecom has been treated with favouritism. Mercury echoes the opinion of the industry in general, where the consensus is that Oftel’s new guidelines on network charges make a mockery of the government’s new policy for encouraging competition in the telecommunications sector. The dispute is over Oftel’s proposal that competitors should contribute to British Telecom’s access deficit whenever they use the company’s network – the idea is that Telecom makes a loss from supplying customers with a phone line which it subsidises from higher call charges, and that its rivals should have to make a similar subsidy – Mercury claims it is already paying its fair share of these costs under its current interconnection arrangement. Mercury’s Steve Hannington points out that Oftel’s proposals seem to entitle any PTO that can prove that it is operating a loss-making local service to levy a compensatory charge from any other operator that uses any part of its network – in practice, it is generally perceived, this would mean that every other operator pays BT. Mercury is expected to abandon plans to offer telephone service to residential customers UK-wide if the levy – up to 11.6 pence a minute – is not reduced, and it is been seen as an unbridgeable obstacle to effective competition. Oftel is expected to make an statement in a few days.
