In December, Ofcom published their final statement detailing the plan for implementing the new European Electronic Communications Code. We now have clarity about which changes will be made and when.

A few small changes have already been added to the General Conditions and Numbering Plan just to reflect the end of the EU withdrawal period. However, there are a few more significant ones coming that will come into play between December 2021 and December 2022, we will circulate an updated compliance guide in due course to ensure our advice reflects Ofcom General Conditions at each stage.

Number porting often plays a part in switching so we do hope that as the ideas progress in this area number porting may get swept along with it, we will be doing our best to keep it top of the agenda.

Due to the complexity of this particular topic Ofcom have given until December 2022 to comply. The key points to be aware of are:

A consumer’s right to port extends to one month after the service has ceased, unless they specifically renounce the right.
The consumer may not be charged for porting, meaning you can’t directly pass on your wholesale service costs.
Splitting of number blocks must be allowed where technically available.

Improving consumer information and choice

The aim of the code is to give consumers better protections and greater ability to compare and choose services. To this end from June 2022 customers must be given a short summary of your main contract terms in writing before they sign up to a contract. This applies to micro, small and not for profit organisations, although they may waive this right by clearly referencing that decision in the pre-contract information.

Contracts must not exceed 24 months (except for physical connections) unless a waiver is signed (large businesses are exempt from this rule) and if additional services are added during the term of the contract you cannot extend the original term of the contract without express permission from the customer.

Also, from June 2022, if you, as a provider, make a contract change mid-term the customer has a right to exit penalty free, regardless of who the change benefits. Again, this applies to micro and small enterprise, not for profit organisations and residential users. The only exception is if the change is purely administrative with no negative impact or the change is imposed by law.

Accessibility

From December 2021 disabled customers must have equivalent access to information, except marketing material, free of charge on request.

Eurorate FTR

Whilst we are not adopting this one in the UK it will apply to any of our clients with European numbers.

From December 2020 the regulation will require all EU countries to set the same price cap on terminating geographic numbers. The new rule also states that this price cap should apply to calls originating from non-EU countries too, which would help greatly where currently some large surcharges are being applied.

However, the no surcharge requirement only applies if the originating country has a termination rate that is the same or less than the Eurorate FTR, in other words if fair reciprocal pricing policies exist.

This policy is currently expected to extend to the UK, albeit with our independent price cap, but the requirement to not heavily surcharge calls that originate internationally to achieve a fair reciprocal relationship does seem to be favored by most regulators and should resolve some of the extraordinary pricing practices we have seen over the last couple of years.