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Representing the Business Communications Industry ISSUE 55 - DECEMBER 2012

bulletin Federation ofCommunicationServices

Membership meansbetter value in 2013FCS membership just became better value for members who dobusiness with small companiesemploying fewer than 10 people:thanks to a new deal with CISAS,you can get an Ofcom-registered Alternative Dispute Resolutionservice for nothing from next year.

As long as you’re an FCS member whose turnover is lessthan £20m, you can now enroll (orrenew) on the CISAS ADR schemeat no cost as of January 2013, the beginning of the nextFCS subscription year. This benefit will continue as long asyou remain in FCS membership.

CISAS are also offering FCS members a reduced rate ontheir commercial mediation, adjudication and arbitrationservices, to help resolve claims in excess of the £5k ceilingwhich is set for the ADR schemes. Referring disputes to aqualified ADR professional upon agreement of both partiescan be a timely and cost-efficient alternative to both sidesbriefing solicitors and slugging it out in court. So FCS ispleased to be able to offer savings on this additional serviceto our members.

“We know a number of FCS members have a preference forthe Ombudsman Services’ telecoms ADR scheme,” saysFCS chief executive Chris Pateman. “We don’t think it’sFCS’s role to tell our members how they should run theirbusiness, so there’s no question of this-or-that ADR schemebecoming a condition of membership: FCS continues towork closely with both the Ombudsman Services and CISASto ensure our members get the best possible value, thattheir views are fully expressed, and that best practice isshared across the industry.”

For further details of the scheme, or to compliance-checkyour company’s current consumer code of practice, callLaura Beard at the FCS office – 020 8249 6363.lbeard@fcs.org.uk.

Chris Pateman, FCS CEO

Bob Stewart MP

When you’ve commanded troops in places like Bosnia, you understand the value of secure and resilient one-to-manyradio communications. So FCS’s local MP, Bob Stewart DSO has lent a willing ear and enthusiastic supportto our campaign to ring-fence radio spectrum for the use of Britain’s critical national infrastructure.

Col Stewart, whose Beckenham constituency includes FCS head office, spent an hour with FCS director Adrian Grilli and chief executive Chris Pateman, getting up to speed with this crucial issue. Mr Grilli’s Joint Radio Companymanages radio spectrum for the electricity utilities, and he chairs the FCS Critical National Infrastructure group. So he was able to share from first-hand experience the importance for utilities’ investment decisions of being able to relyupon sufficient radio spectrum to meet their future requirements.

“Bob Stewart is clearly a man of action,” said Adrian. “He grasped the issues very quickly, and he immediately gave us a very useful pincer movement plan of action: FCS briefs civil servants while he tackles the Minister. We look forward to working with him to ensure the vital principle of reserving spectrum for CNI is written into DCMS policy well before the next round of ‘4G’ auctions.”

The long-running and controversial dispute with Openreach over retrospective charges on CPs for six-year-old BT special phonebook entries appears to be over.

FCS members have emerged with what chief negotiator MichaelEagle described as an ‘acceptable compromise’: everythingprior to 2011 has now been written off by BT, and we have received a useful and welcome statement on the issue of refunds for current year’s entries that customers either didn’torder or no longer want.

BT has advised that it will not allow immediate cancellationwhere the customer no longer requires the service. However,where the CP or end user challenges the special phone bookentry on the basis that they do not believe that they have requested it, then BT will deal with each query on an individualcase by case basis (BT has advised that this will include a check to determine if the CP has selected the option to “retaindirectory entry” on a like for like transfer). On completion of theinvestigation a decision will then be made as to whether or notthe mid term cancellation will attract charges for the remainingduration of that edition of the phone book.

“In view of the quality of records available to BT it seems likelythat such challenges are likely to be successful,” says Michael.“We advise members to raise challenges on any cases of thistype.”

Some further unbilled items, relating to Bold Entries, have beenidentified as part of the tidy-up process. Where customers nolonger require these entries, they will be cancelled and no retrospective or ongoing charges will be made. However, wherethe customer does want to continue with the entry, a retrospective charge of up to 3 months will be made(i.e. relevant billing for the period from September will appear on the CP’sDecember invoice).

FCS pressure finally yields‘acceptable’ compromiseon Special Phone Book entries

Colonel Bob embraces CNI spectrum campaign

INSIDE: BR12, CP12, New standard for billing, FITAS and more!

December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

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FCS and Arqivapioneer ‘fast-track’accreditation forvehicle installers

FCS tackles the mobile elephant in the EU’s room

FCS and Arqiva are pioneering aradical new learning and developmentprogramme which shrinks six months’installer training into two days. Themove means experienced installerscan complete all the training for FITASaccreditation for installing radio-frequency equipment in vehicles (toFCS1362) by spending two days inthe classroom. Up until now, the onlyavailable option has been six monthsor more of private course-book studyand distance-learning.

The new course is the result of Arqiva’s input into

a roots-up review of the FITAS accreditation

scheme, undertaken by FCS earlier this year.

“We wanted to make sure FITAS was offering the

trade what it really needs,” says FITAS scheme

manager Jason McComb. Long-standing

supporters like Premier and Emobile are proof

that the distance learning scheme works well.

But there are also excellent installers who don't

feel comfortable with the self-study approach. So

we started looking at alternative ways of

delivering the same training.

“Arqiva liked the idea of a concentrated two day

course from the moment we first discussed it

with them. Their willingness not only to back the

concept, but to champion it to their installer

partners, gave FCS the confidence to invest in

making the fast-track course a reality. We’re

delighted, now, that the

first two cohorts through

the two-day course will all

be Arqiva partners.”

FCS is urging European regulators to subject mobile phone companies to greater scrutiny or risk serious market distortions as the EU communicationsmarket converges.

“The entry of the mobile phone operators into the fixed telephony market has

the potential to seriously threaten free competition,” says FCS deputy chairman

Dave Dadds, who chairs the influential FCS Industry Forum.

“The mobile operators already have a long history of engaging in litigation with

Ofcom and the other regulators across Europe, at a level of cost and complexity

which would be completely unsupportable by their SME competitors. And the

availability of 4G functionality will strengthen the mobile operators’ market

position still further, in areas which are simply not available to the fixed line

market operators.

“FCS is arguing for some urgent guidance from BEREC, the pan-European

regulators group, to help regulators deal with oligopolies. Given the litigious

nature of the relationships at national level, we believe this work can only

effectively be carried out at EU-level.”

There is growing evidence the conventional technology-by-technology approach

to regulation has been overtaken by events, says the FCS submission. The new

generation of mobile market-makers are highly commercially astute international

operators who have achieved high levels of customer penetration. Rather than

risk being found in ‘Significant Market Power’ (SMP) positions by further

consolidation within this vertical sector, they are now moving strongly into a

broader horizontal portfolio of bundled products right across the market place.

Both in Business-to-Consumer and Business-to-Business segments.

Compared with fixed-line products, where principles of equivalence are well

established, wholesale access to mobile calls is generally far harder for small

communications providers to obtain. Which means most business-to-business

communications providers are forced to purchase wholesale mobile access via

a third-party aggregator. So margins are low, there is no direct control over

product development, and the provision of mobile calls is often regarded as a

‘service’ element of the package the provider offers his customer.

On the other hand, mobile phone companies are free to offer attractive mobile

tariffs to potential business customers, and to bundle them with wholesale fixed

line products whose prices are already freely available in the market.

“Without urgent action to ensure a transparent, equivalent and price-efficient

wholesale market in the mobile segment, we fear BEREC’s current work on the

fixed line market may be overtaken by events,” says Dave Dadds.

“A simple definition of SMP as 50%-plus of a market doesn’t allow for the

opportunities for anti-competitive behaviour among three or more operators.

One example is the way UK mobile phone operators all moved in 2001 from

gaining-provider led number porting to a losing-provider led regime, just at a

time when Three was attempting to enter the market. This losing-provider led

approach is still in place today in spite of the evidence right across Europe of

consumer preference for gaining-provider led”.

In-car digital radio campaigners are pinning theirgrowth-hopes on an animated short-house soul-man this winter. ‘D-Love’has already started spreadinghis retro vibes and ice-coollistening preferences on TVand radio, encouraging driversto install new digital in-car kit.And FCS will be riding on his leopard-skin coat tails with themessage that buying goodquality hi-fi is only half thestory: if you want to enjoymellow mellow vibes while the heated rearscreen is on, better get the job done properly,sweet cheeks: use a FITAS-accredited installer.Spread the word. Spread the love!

Motown midget champions DAB

December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

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December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

Industry sets a new standard for billing records

Five of the UK’s largest independent billing vendors have pulled off the impossible: they have come upwith a way to make billing easier and more consistent without interfering in CPs’ choice of commercialpartners or restricting the way individual providers go about their business

Is a report for a CP with RID code RID for a single call from customer account reference AAAAA made in the month ending

31/01/13. The call is a voice call from a fixed line 01999 887000. The number 01732 353495 was dialled on January 28 2013

10.37.23, and the call lasted for a total of 233 seconds. The number called is at Hampton, the billing rate for the call is UK Local,

and the Peak time band applies. This rate is charged at 0.8p per second, and no bundle discount applies. The caller’s extension

is 654, and his direct-dial number is 01999 887665. The carrier was TalkTalk, the bill attracts standard rate VAT and the CDR

provider’s unique internal reference is 77879. The number of blank fields (“”) can be used to contain additional data for mobile

data calls, refunds or country of origin data, or for recording ring-times or diverted number details.

Typical file format:

AKJ, Nine Group, eBillz, PRD and Union Street between them

provide the billing platforms for a large proportion of the

channel’s resellers. And all have now agreed in principle to

offer their customers the choice to output wholesale CDRs in

a consistent format from next year -- using a common standard

which will be administered for the whole industry under the

umbrella of FCS.

“The UK telecoms market has matured over the years,” says

Tony Cook of Union Street, acting chairman of the new FCS

Billing Group. “So we now have a myriad of wholesale service

providers to the telecoms channel.

“The lack of any standards for CDRs has resulted in every

supplier providing billing data in their own unique format. With

more and more new entrants to the market (for example hosted

and SIP providers), there are literally hundreds of inconsistent

CDR formats in existence.”

This creates a big headache for Communication Providers who

need to receive and process these billing CDR files. Each new

service requires them to interpret the data, and modify their

billing platform to support the new CDRs. The specifications of

many of these CDR files are not properly documented and

open to different interpretation. This can result in hassle and

time delays and even billing errors.

Having to write and re-write input processes to allow billing

systems to receive CDR files in different formats from each

different carrier slows down product development. It makes the

process of adding new wholesale suppliers more long-winded

and more costly than it needs to be. It’s also a drain

on development resources, since the work has to be individually

duplicated by each individual billing provider.

“Without doubt, the industry has been crying out for a standard for

CDRs for a long time,” says Tony Cook. “Once the new standard is

rolled out, any wholesale provider who adopts it will find it much

easier for CPs to do business with them as the CDRs will

immediately be importable by most of the major billing platforms.

Over time CPs will have to make little or no modification to their

billing platforms in order to receive CDRs in the standard format.”

The launch version of the standard was signed off at the

Convergence Summit South exhibition at Sandown Park on

October 3. The industry should expect to start seeing it being

implemented in the first quarter of 2013.

FCS are keen to maintain this as an open standard for the whole

industry. If you are interested in joining the Billing Group, or being

kept up to date on developments, please contact Laura at the FCS

office: 0208 249 6363; lbeard@fcs.org.uk.

RID_Monthly_Calls_AAAAA_31012013_SEQNUMBER_RECRDCOUNT_V1.txt”v”,”0”,”01999887000”,”01732353495”,”280120

13”,”10:37:23”,”233”,””,””,”Hampton”,”UKLocal”,”Peak”,”0.8”,”0.8”,”654”,”01999887665”,””,”UKL”.”TalkTalk”,””,”S”,””,””,””

,””,””,””,””,”77879”

Tim Barclay, Managing Director Sales and Customer Experience, Openreach

December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

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Communications: Yesterday, today and forever

“The pace of change has never been faster.People are looking to the channel for answers.So decide what you are good at and find people to help. Start here! The future of ourindustry belongs to those who build skills, seekalliances and stay positive.”

“Component thinking becomes holistic andstrategic thinking; data centre capable becomescloud capable; quality of service becomes less important than quality of experience; video capable becomes ‘TelePresence’ capable;ISDN30 moves to SIP trunking and approaches to architecture change from inside-out to outside-in. Customer satisfaction drives every-thing.”

Stu Smith, Portfolio Architect, Kcom

“We are on the threshold of a new qualification for the industry, enabling businesses to ‘grow their own’ engineers andcustomer service people within a nationally-recognised framework.”

Ann Potterton, Chief Executive, Institute of Telecommunications Professionals

Gregg, Hunt, Managing Director, CISAS

Andy Morris, Service and Operations Director, Gamma

Nigel Sergent, Editorial Director, Comms Dealer magazine

“Success looks different for a business customer: we have to be much more joinedup in that supply chain. As an industry,working with Openreach, we need to extract measurements that reflect business users. The underlying objective isto reduce the cost of failure across the supply chain.”

“Openreach has 533 customers in total. Probablyonly 20-30 deal direct with the consumer marketbut they represent 80%-plus of our volume ofwork. The number of Openreach customers isskewed massively towards business. But the totalvolume of work is skewed massively towardsconsumer. So what are the really concrete thingswe can do together that will have the biggest impact?”

“Membership of the CISAS alternative disputeresolution scheme will now be free of charge toFCS members from January next year... use ofCEDR’s professional mediation, adjudicationand arbitration services will be available at specially reduced rates to FCS members.”

Business leaders attending this year’s FCS Comms Provider industry summitcertainly went home with plenty to thinkabout.

The whole market’s going to changebeyond recognition within five years.But at least the industry now has thewherewithal to train its owntechnicians, rather than relying onhead-hunting the products of the BTapprenticeship scheme.

Openreach service levels are awful.But at least they are engaging withthe industry as never before to agreejoint ways of concentrating effort andmeasuring performance for the vitalbusiness-to-business sector

Fraud is widespread, pervasive andcostly. But at least the industry istaking it seriously, sharing informationand working towards best practicesolutions for managing customersand cutting fraudsters off fromsources of revenue.

Ofcom are underway with 12 marketreviews, touching on just about everyaspect of the fixed-line market. Butat least the policy direction is alreadyset: if the comms market of thefuture expects the regulator to takeaction to protect existing businessmodels, the onus will be on CPs toprovide evidence that consumers arenot enjoying the benefits they should.

Billing is getting simpler and moreefficient thanks to an agreed commonstandard among billing providers. Butat worst the fuzzy wording of the draftEU General Data ProtectionRegulation and the UK’s own draft UKCommunications Data Bill threaten toforce new costs and newresponsibilities on to the industry.

Many thanks to Eversheds for hostingCP12 in their city of Londonauditorium.

Couldn’t make it? You missed out! But you can still see the speakers’ presentations at the CP12 page on the FCS website.

http://www.fcs.org.uk/Events/CommsProvider.aspx

December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

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December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

“We in the UK were focused dramatically in

1996 by Hanrattry’s IRA cell, planning to

take out six transformer stations around

London. We’re much more focused now on

what we’re protecting. Not specific to

sector, but seeking out single points of

failure.”

Spectrum re-emerged in the presentation

from Paul Jarvis of Ofcom, who high-

lighted that future spectrum requirements

for blue light operators are moving

increasingly to transmitting data packets

alongside traditional voice-over services.

“Talking to business radio dealers about

spectrum shortages is only confirming what

everybody already knows. The interesting

stuff comes when you start talking about

how to get more out of the spectrum you’ve

already got. And particularly when you start

adding functionalities which allow you to sell

some new enhancement to your cutomers.”

Christine Cant from Tait concentrated on

the issues of migrating existing

customers from analogue to digital

systems by making everything look and

feel the same – right down to the repeater

stations (take out three old components;

put three new ones in, put the cover back

in place and you’re suddenly digital).

Andy Woodhall from Simoco referred to the

company’s long radio heritage (the old PYE

radio brand of the 1950s) and observed that

“as an industry we can no longer think of

ourselves as a stand-alone radio supplier.

We have to offer applications to our

customers and solid IP architecture.”

Jeff Spaeth from Motorola asked “What is

the value proposition that will cause

customers to continue to choose

business radio in the future? It’s down to

four Cs: Coverage, Cost, Control and

Capacity.”

MK Wong of Hytera gave delegates a

glimpse of the clever value-adds being

incorporated into the next generation of

lightweight, slimline handsets and

portable repeater stations and an insight

into the philosophy of Hytera’s

commitment to become a major world

player in every aspect of the market.

And the Fleetcomm double-act of John

Kelly and Sam Hunt demonstrated that in

UK networks, too, innovative approaches

to aerial installation sites and leased

networks can provide economic,

scaleable and flexible solutions to the

changing needs of the radio-user

community.

The day finished with a fascinating insight

from Adrian Streeter of Transport for

London into the way in which radio

frequency communications enabled

London’s bus and underground

infrastructure to cope with the demands

of the Olympic Games.

Event chairman Tim Cull, FCS’s

business radio expert, rounded up the day

with three bullets:

Very encouraged by the future

prospects for the industry

BR IS MOVING FORWARD

We must resolve the spectrum issue

to keep the growth going

The new larger venue of the Hilton Metropole on the National Exhibition Centre complex attracted recordnumbers of both delegates and sponsors to this year’s FCS Business Radio event. And while digital technology was widely recognised as offering major new opportunities to take business radio ‘mainstream’,spectrum availability proved controversial from the off.

Analysys Mason’s newly-published,

taxpayer-funded report for DCMS on the

value of spectrum to the UK economy

was lambasted in FCS CEO Chris

Pateman’s opening remarks for

including comments like ‘Spectrum is a

finite resource, similar to property’ and

‘We have not attempted to calculate the

value of spectrum in public sector use,

largely due to methodological difficulties’.

“Spectrum is absolutely not a resource

similar to property, Mr Pateman said.”

“We can’t just build more of it. It really

doesn’t help our industry’s case when

policy-makers receive messages of this

kind.”

“FCS does have some sympathy with

Analysys Mason about the methodological

difficulties in measuring the value of

spectrum for public sector use. We did the

same job ourselves a couple of years ago,

and we quickly found that once you start

working out the cost to the UK of ports not

operating or trains not running, the figures

get so large, so quickly that they simply

don’t seem credible. But choosing,

instead, to ignore them does not help

balance the arguments when your

government’s default position is to allocate

spectrum via auctions.”

Keynote speaker Nigel Brown, who heads

up the Cabinet Office’s work on assessing

and anticipating the risk to the nation’s

infrastructure from system failure or

terrorist attack confirmed there is no

reserved spectrum for critical national

infrastructure, and no current plans to

reserve any.

BR12: Tuning up for tomorrow’s digital revolution

Couldn’t make it? You missed out! But you can still see the speakers’ presentations at the BR12 page on the FCS website.http://www.fcs.org.uk/Events/BusinessRadio.aspx

December 2012 Federation of Communication Services

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New members FCS is pleased to welcome the following companies that have

recently joined the Federation:

10 May FCS Comms Installer 13 Hilton Metropole, Birmingham

6 February FCS Regional Meeting Bristol (Venue, TBA)

5-6 March MEN Expo Ricoh Stadium, Coventry

13 March FCS Regional Meeting Manchester

24 April FCS Regional Meeting Birmingham

30 April/1 May Convergence Summit Manchester CentralNorth

4-5 June NAPFM Event Telford Exhibition Centre

FCS Events 2013

Wightfibre Telecom Ltd

Safeguard Communications (UK) Ltd

Thomas Eggar LLP

Magrathea Telecommunications Ltd

Watson Farley & Williams LLP

Next IS Limited

Real Wireless Limited

Element Five (Consulting) Ltd

FCS members represent a growing andpowerful voice in the market place. Andthat’s a message worth shouting about.As well as FCS’s own major industryevents – FCS Comms Dealer for the FSPmarket and FCS Business Radio for thePMR community, the team has been carrying the message to the market atlarge, by participating at the Blue Lightexhibition in Peterborough and the Convergence Summit South event atSandown Park.

“Peterborough gave us an excellent opportunity to

showcase FCS’s FITAS installer scheme to

professional fleet buyers from the vital emergency

services sector,” says FITAS scheme manager Jason

McComb. “It’s no good going through a detailed

procurement process, selecting the right kit and

scheduling a vehicle to be off the road for an install if

you end up with an indifferent job that could let your

FCS flies the flag at industry exhibitions

people down at a critical time -- and even put their lives at risk.

“That’s the whole point behind the FCS1362 code of practice for installing

radio equipment into vehicles. And it’s a point public fleet buyers are now

listening to with increasing attention – especially now FITAS is referenced

in government procurement framework documents.”

FCS’s Sandown Park appearance concentrated on reminding resellers how

much their trade association is doing for the industry as a whole. A giant

pop-up of Openreach’s ‘problem statement’, acknowledging the need to

work pro-actively with channel partners to improve their service levels,

proved a real show-stopper, says FCS membership manager Laura Beard.

“Just about everybody who walked past our stand stopped and talked

about the need to improve Openreach service levels – including two people

from Openreach itself! I think the show opened a lot of people’s eyes about

the kind of value FCS delivers for our membership: it’s one thing moaning

quietly and just adjusting your business to work-around other peoples’

inefficiencies. It’s quite another to bring them to the table to address the

issues. This industry can really get things done when it works collectively

and FCS provides the perfect means to do so without having to spend a

fortune or risk being singled out.”

FCS Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham,

Kent BR3 1AT

Tel +44 (0)20 8249 6363 Email fcs@fcs.org.uk

FCS bulletin is published by FCS Ltd.

All content is copyright and can only be copied with theexpress permission of the publisher. No liability will beaccepted for any errors or omissions in the text.

Contact us

Laura Beard, Michael Eagle & Chris Pateman on the FCS stand at Convergence Summit South

Chris Pateman & Jason McComb at the Blue Light exhibition

We need as many members as possible involved in

this vital work: If you have an interest in any of the

above, please contact Michael Eagle for more details.

meagle@fcs.org.uk

Infrastructure sharing

Changes to GC17 and the numbering plan

White Space devices

Fixed market access reviews

UHF Strategy and infrastructure

Business connectivity market review Payment of costs & expenses in regulatory disputes

FCS is currently preparing industry responses or

engaging in discussions with Ofcom on the

following regulatory issues:

Current policy issues