Oftel issues PASS notes

Posted on 1 Oct 2002 at 11:47

Whether at home or in business, finding the best telecoms supplier these days can be a nightmare as customers try to juggle the various tariffs against each other.

Oftel has long recognised the problem. Previously it has addressed it with its own phonebills website. Now, it has come up with a new initiative, the Oftel Price Assurance Standard (PASS).

The scheme is aimed at websites who provide comparative price and service information about telecoms suppliers and comply with a set of rules known as the PASS code. In return, Oftel allows the site to display the PASS logo and will provide links from its own website and the CPI website - Comparable Performance Indicators for telecommunication services.

The scheme is currently open to sites which display details for home users although Oftel expects to open the scheme for business users at some point in the future.

Websites qualifying for the PASS logo will have to show accurate and up to date price information which must be updated at least every eight weeks. The website must also include prices of at least ten different suppliers, including BT and, preferably, Kingston Communications. If the website offers price information on mobile phone services it has to include prices for O2, Orange, T-mobile and Vodafone. For other types of telecoms services, the website must provide prices of a reasonable number of suppliers. The scheme is not aimed at sites comparing unmetered access from ISPs.

At the same time, Oftel says that any site offering such information must not be seen to be too close to a telecoms provider and that includes taking advertising from them. Neither are the sites allowed to charge home users for the information.

Initial setup charges for web sites receiving PASS accreditation are £5,000 with a £3,000 renewel charge in subsequent years. Although, from the web sites point of view, this may not seem like such a great deal Oftel is confident that sites will come forward for accreditation. 'It's early days, but we are reasonably confident that people will come forward to apply for the PASS,' Oftel spokeswoman, Jo Hamilton told us. 'We are aiming our publicity at companies who might want to join up with further publicity aimed at users towards the end of the year such as press releases and radio interviews.'

Author: steve malone