Mostly Mobile.....for most people!
11 July 2009
Ofcom released their consultation document ‘Mostly Mobile‘ on 8 July. It is a clever title which recognises the changes in the communications world over recent years. Both mobile take up and customer satisfaction are high and citizens now regard mobile services as central to their lives and so Ofcom's assessment needs to be against that ‘centrality' background.
The mobile operators tell us that complaints about network coverage are a relatively small proportion of all complaints. And that may well be the case; but for some people, especially those who live outside urban areas coverage remains an issue for this service which is ‘central' to their lives. We welcome the focus that Ofcom have given to this issue in the consultation document and the recognition that competition is unlikely to materially improve coverage. We hope that the consultation with operators, the devolved administrations and others can result in ways of making improvements for those customers who experience poor or non existent coverage.
Progress has been made on both ‘999 roaming' i.e being able to make a call on another network if your own is unavailable and on reducing misselling, but we will be monitoring both to ensure that progress continues.
Other areas of consumer concern that we will be discussing with Ofcom are
- The general area of pricing complexity and especially 0800, 0845 etc. calls. BT has now included such calls in bundles and we think that the mobile operators should also consider this.
- The usability of devices and the incorporation of features which could enable older or disabled users to more easily use mobile services
- Unrestricted access by young people to undesirable internet content as access to the internet becomes the norm on mobile devices.
As ever we would welcome any comments