§ Mr. Wheelerasked the Secretary of State for Industry what progress has been made on interim arrangements for the approval of privately-supplied extension telephones for connection to the British Telecom network.
§ Mr. WakehamOn 16 November, my hon. Friend, the Minister for Industry and Information Technology, announced interim arrangements for the approval of privately supplied extension telephones for connection to the public switched telephone network pending the introduction of independent arrangements for the approval of such extension telephones in July 1982. Suppliers were invited to submit extension telephones to the Department of Industry for evaluation
Twenty-two companies submitted 96 eligible items of equipment and these have been considered by the Department in consultation with British Telecom according to the criteria laid down by my hon. Friend. Although BT has made additional testing facilities available for the testing of privately supplied extension telephones and modems, its facilities are limited and I 226W have decided to give priority for the first evaluation to six companies who have been invited to submit specific items of equipment for testing. These companies are:—
- Advanced Consumer Electronics Limited
- Astral Telecom
- "Conversation Pieces"
- GEC Telecommunications Limited
- Standard Telephone and Cables plc
- Storacall Telephone Answering Systems.
Testing will be carried out by BT on behalf of the Department and should be complete by the end of April. Equipment which proves satisfactory will be given interim approval by the Department but, because these are interim arrangements suppliers will be required to enter into a supplier's agreement with BT before their approved equipment can be offered for sale in the shops. If testing shows that any of the items selected for testing under the interim arrangements is unsuitable for connection to BT's network, the Department in consultation with BT will consider whether to test any of the other equipment which has been submitted for interim approval in order to make full use of available test resources. Applications which are not selected for testing under the interim arrangements will be returned to the companies concerned in due course, but the companies will be free to re-submit the equipment under the independent approvals arrangements to be introduced in July.