The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (''the telecommunications regulator'') was a department in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
government, under
civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
market. It was set up under the
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 ...
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
A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
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 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
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 sect ...
1 April 1993 – 31 March 1998
*
David Edmonds 1 April 1998–29 December 2003
See also
*
Ofcom - Oftel's replacement organisation.
*
Area code#United Kingdom, UK Telephone area (STD) codes
*
UK topics
Notes
Communications authorities
History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom
Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom
Regulators of the United Kingdom
Telecommunications organisations in the United Kingdom
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