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Oftel
The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (''the telecommunications regulator'') was a department in the United Kingdom government, under civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK telecommunications market. It was set up under the Telecommunications Act 1984 after privatisation of the nationalised operator BT. Oftel was accused by critics such as Freeserve of having been " captured" by BT, and of giving the dominant operator too much freedom to leverage its monopoly status in fixed line telephony into other markets such as ADSL. On 29 December 2003, the duties of Oftel were inherited by Ofcom, which was the result of the consolidation of five separate British telecommunications, radio spectrum and broadcasting regulators. Director-General of Oftel *Bryan Carsberg 1 August 1984–12 June 1992 *Bill Wigglesworth (acting) 13 June 1992 – 31 March 1998 *Donald Cruickshank 1 April 1993 – 31 March 1998 * David Edmo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oftel Logo
The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (''the telecommunications regulator'') was a department in the United Kingdom government, under civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK telecommunications market. It was set up under the Telecommunications Act 1984 after privatisation of the nationalised operator BT. Oftel was accused by critics such as Freeserve of having been " captured" by BT, and of giving the dominant operator too much freedom to leverage its monopoly status in fixed line telephony into other markets such as ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. .... On 29 December 2003, the duties of Oftel were inherited by Ofcom, which was the result of the consolidation of five separate British ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ofcom
The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material. Some of the main areas Ofcom presides over are licensing, research, codes and policies, complaints, competition and protecting the radio spectrum from abuse (e.g., pirate radio stations). The regulator was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002 and received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003. History On , the Queen's Speech to the UK Parliament announced the creation of Ofcom. The new body, which was to replace several existing authorities, was conceived as a "super-regulator" to ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Edmonds (businessman)
David Albert Edmonds CBE (born 6 March 1944) is a British businessman, former civil servant and Board Chair. The son of Albert and Gladys Edmonds of Kingsley, Cheshire, he was educated at Helsby Grammar School and the University of Keele. He was a civil servant from 1966 to 1974 before becoming a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. Returning to the Civil Service in 1975, from 1979 until 1983 he was Principal Private Secretary to Michael Heseltine, Secretary of State for the Environment. After a year as under-secretary for Inner City Policy, he became chief executive of the Housing Corporation from 1984 to 1991. He was deputy chairman of the board of the '' New Statesman and Society'' from 1988 to 1990. He became a managing director responsible for Group Property and Central Services within NatWest Group (1991-1998). He was Director General of Oftel from 1998 to 2003 where he championed inter alia the unbundling of BT's local loop, the reduction of mobile charg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Telecommunications In The United Kingdom
Telecommunications in the United Kingdom have evolved from the early days of the telegraph to modern broadband and mobile phone networks with Internet services. History National Telephone Company (NTC) was a British telephone company from 1881 until 1911 which brought together smaller local companies in the early years of the telephone. Under the Telephone Transfer Act 1911 it was taken over by the General Post Office (GPO) in 1912. Until 1982, the main civil telecommunications system in the UK was a state monopoly known (since reorganisation in 1969) as Post Office Telecommunications. Broadcasting of radio and television was a duopoly of the BBC and Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA): these two organisations controlled all broadcast services, and directly owned and operated the broadcast transmitter sites. Mobile phone and Internet services did not then exist. The civil telecoms monopoly ended when Mercury Communications arrived in 1983. The Post Office system evolved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telecommunications Act 1984
The Telecommunications Act 1984 (c 12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The rules for the industry are now contained in the Communications Act 2003. Provisions The provisions of the act included the following: * Privatising British Telecom. * Establishing Oftel as a telecommunications regulator to protect consumers' interests and market competition. * Introducing a licensing system for running a telecommunications system or making a connection to another system without a licence. Doing so without a licence became a criminal offence. * Setting standards for modems according to BABT rules. * Criminalising indecent, offensive or threatening phone calls. Section 94 Section 94 of the act provided a very broad power of government regulation of telecommunications in the interests of national security or relations with foreign governments. It allowed ''any'' Secretary of State to give secret directions to Ofcom or any providers of public electronic communications ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Telecom
BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK, and also provides subscription television and IT services. BT's origins date back to the founding in 1846 of the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, which developed a nationwide communications network. BT Group as it came to be started in 1912, when the General Post Office, a government department, took over the system of the National Telephone Company becoming the monopoly telecoms supplier in the United Kingdom. The Post Office Act of 1969 led to the GPO becoming a public corporation. The ''British Telecom'' brand was introduced in 1980, and became independent of the Post Office in 1981, officially trading under the name. British Telecommunications was privat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freeserve
Freeserve was a British Internet service provider, which was founded in 1998. At its height, the company became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, before merging into the Wanadoo group in 2000. It then became a subsidiary of France Telecom, who owned a controlling interest in Wanadoo. Wanadoo rebranded over time and eventually became Orange Home UK. Since the merger of Orange UK into EE, Orange Home UK was integrated as a service within EE's range of services. History The company was founded in 1998 as a project between Dixons Group plc and Leeds-based hosting provider Planet Online to provide free Internet access to customers buying new home PCs from Dixons stores. The concept was the brainchild of Ajaz Ahmed who was an employee at Dixons at the time. He grew frustrated of not being able to get online without technical knowhow and so sought about a better way for PC owners to get online. Initially the concept was called Channel 6 and was between Packard Bell and Plan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donald Cruickshank
Sir Donald Gordon Cruickshank (born September 1942) is a Scottish businessman, whose career has straddled public and private sector. Career Many of the businesses that Cruickshank has worked for or chaired have been engaged in the media sector. He was managing director of Virgin Group from 1984 to 1989, overseeing its stock market listing and subsequent delisting. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Cruickshank held management positions at The Times Newspapers and Pearson Longman. From 1999 to 2004, he chaired Scottish Media Group (SMG). More recently, he was a board member of Qualcomm (2005–2015) and in 2014 became chairman of 7Digital. While two of Cruickshank's public service roles – Director General of UK telecoms regulator, Oftel, from 1993 to 1998; and Chairman of millennium big task force, Action 2000 – had a media slant to them, others were in healthcare and financial services. Between 1986 and 1989, he was CEO of Wandsworth NHS Trust and from 1989 to 1993 he was CE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Technology Organisations Based In The United Kingdom
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artifacts such as analog signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form. Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation. Information is often processed iteratively: Data available at one step are processed into information to be interpreted and processed at the next step. For example, in written text each symbol or letter conveys information relevant to the word it is part of, each word conveys information releva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Communications Authorities
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquiry studying them. There are many disagreements about its precise definition. John Peters argues that the difficulty of defining communication emerges from the fact that communication is both a universal phenomenon and a specific discipline of institutional academic study. One definitional strategy involves limiting what can be included in the category of communication (for example, requiring a "conscious intent" to persuade). By this logic, one possible definition of communication is the act of developing meaning among entities or groups through the use of sufficiently mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic conventions. An important distinction is between verbal communication, which happens through the use of a language, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Topics
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; a sovereign country in Europe, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK), or Britain. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, it includes the island of Great Britain—a term also applied loosely to refer to the whole country—the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. General reference * The United Kingdom is... ** both a country and a country made up of countries ** both a nation state and a state made up of nations ** an island country ** a Commonwealth realm (1931–) * Pronunciation: * Abbreviations: UK * Common English country names: The United Kingdom, The UK, or Britain * Official English country name: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland * Common endonyms: United Kingdom, UK, Britain * Official endonyms: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland * A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Area Code
A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, reachable by a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbering plans are defined in each of the administrative regions of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and in private telephone networks. For public numbering systems, geographic location typically plays a role in the sequence of numbers assigned to each telephone subscriber. Many numbering plan administrators subdivide their territory of service into geographic regions designated by a prefix, often called an area code or city code, which is a set of digits forming the most-significant part of the dialing sequence to reach a telephone subscriber. Numbering plans may follow a variety of design strategies which have often arisen from the historical evolution of individu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
