About us
Background
The coming into effect of the Communications Act from the 25th July 2003 resulted in a significant change to the telecommunications regulatory regime.
The Telecommunications Act that covers, as its name implies Telecommunications Networks and Services, was the legislation that allowed the development of competition from 1984. It also led to the formation of Oftel – the original Telecommunications Regulator for the UK.
The new Communications Act has a broader remit, covering not only Telecoms; but also Television Networks and Services, and Radio Spectrum. In order to address this wider range of responsibilities a new regulatory body has been formed which has taken over from Oftel, the Radiocommunications Agency, the Broadcasting Standards Council, the Independent Television Commission, and the Radio Authority. This new Regulator – called Ofcom (Office of Communications) took over on the 29th of December 2003.
Aside from the creation of Ofcom, the most significant of the changes that the Communication Act has brought about has been the revocation of all Telecommunications Licenses required under the old Telecommunications Act regime.
For Communications Services Providers (CSPs) providing Publicly Available Telephony Services (PATS), such as KCOM Group PLC, these licenses have been replaced by "General Conditions of Entitlement" (General Conditions). These replicate much of what was contained in the old Public Telecommunications Operator (PTO) licences. In some instances, these oblige the KCOM Group to publish information about its services, such as pricing and associated terms and conditions.
There are also a number of specific conditions that are applied to some CSPs where the regulator has determined they have significant market power (SMP) in a market defined by the European Commission (EC), or if they are the provider of the Universal Service Obligation (USO), such as the KCOM Group is within the "Hull area".
The Regulator has performed a series of Market Reviews to establish the state of competition within the communications sector with the aim of determining how much regulation should be imposed within each market sector. KCOM's East Yorkshire operation has been found to have dominance – leading to an SMP determination for it in the "Hull area" for a number of EC defined product and service markets.
Some of the consequent additional conditions impose further obligations with respect to publication of other documents and information regarding the KCOM Group's retail and wholesale services and operations.
The documents that are required to be published to comply with the obligations arising from General, USO and SMP conditions, including reference offers, price lists, interface specifications and statistical information, can be found in the following pages.