• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By editorial@silicon.com, 15 November 2000 18:00

NEWS He accused members of the Committee of bashing the incumbent UK telco for the sake of grabbing headlines and criticised them for showing a lack of understanding of the very services they were supposed to be protecting. He said: "This meeting seems to have been all about MPs trying to engage in BT bashing, with Oftel caught in the middle. I find these sentiments worrying. "BT has its own shareholders, which it needs to satisfy with a return on their investment. At the moment it keeps being given sticks to be beaten with, but no carrots as inducements to compete better and develop. At the moment everything BT tries to do is apparently wrong. It is bound to be acting very defensively. "I can understand the MPs have a watchdog role, but are they also engaging in a constructive process of dialog with BT? BT bashing by itself is counter-productive and it shows how MPs don't understand the new economy." UK phone regulator Oftel received a roasting yesterday at the hands of a DTI Select Committee over the state of domestic telecoms services. The full findings of the investigation, covered by silicon.com (http://www.silicon.com/a40832 ), will be released by the end of this year, with the main agenda points addressing the long awaited unbundling of the local loop and unmetered internet access. Oftel was accused of protecting BT's monopoly by not acting quickly or effectively enough. In defence of itself Oftel placed the blame solely on the incumbent UK telco. Dave Edmonds, director general of Oftel said: "BT has not responded as quickly as I would have wanted. I have communicated that this is unacceptable on a number of occasions." The Committee however, felt it was Oftel's job to push harder for reform and not assume BT would be able to self regulate or would comply unmonitored with the wishes of the regulator. BT will be given its chance to defend itself when it reports to the committee later this year. By Nik Hole