§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many nine digit telephone numbers in the 0800 range have(a) been issued, (b) remain available to be issued and (c) are currently in use; and when the full range is expected to be in use. [63467]
§ Mrs. RocheThe 0800 nine-digit range was allocated by BT to itself in the time of its monopoly before 1984. When Oftel took over the administration of the Numbering Scheme from BT in 1994 unused portions ('blocks') of the 0800 nine digit range were recovered from BT and issued as ten digit numbers to other operators. BT has currently allocated over 80 per cent. of the 0800 nine digit capacity. No other operator has 0800 nine digit capacity.
Because of BT's dominance in its holding of 0800 numbers BT was required to stop allocating new nine digit numbers to their customers from July 1997. Since that date BT has been issuing 0800 ten digit numbers out of allocations made to them by Oftel. The remaining unused 0800 nine digit numbers cannot be made available to other operators under current arrangements as they are in BT blocks. They therefore remain frozen pending the outcome of the current Oftel consultation on freephone numbers.
The up to date figure for the quantity of 0800 nine digit numbers in use is not information held by Oftel as it relates to BT and its customers. However, it is generally recognised that between 80,000 and 100,000 such numbers are in use.
It is the intention of the current consultation on freephone numbers to decide on an arrangement that will make available the full range of 0800.
§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many responses have been received to OFTEL's consultation document, Freephone Numbers: Options for the Future, from(a) businesses, (b) network 366W operators, (c) telecom advisory committees and (d) others; and how many responses from each group (i) supported and (ii) opposed options 1 and/or 2. [63522]
§ Mrs. RocheOftel has received submissions to its consultation document Freephone Numbers: Options for the Future from 168 respondees. Responses are divided into the following categories
a) Businesses—128 responsesConsisting of 66 supporting the Freephone User Group (FUG) responses, 26 supporting the Direct Marketing Association responses and 36 other business responses.b) Network operators—8 responsesc) Telecommunications Advisory Groups—21 responsesd) Others—11 responsesConsisting of 2 Consultants, 2 Consumer Groups, 5 Trade Bodies and 3 residential users. The numbers of responses that (i) supported and (ii) opposed options 1 and/or 2 are shown in the table below.
Support Oppose Option 1 Option 2 Option 1 Option 2 (a) Businesses 2 3 93 97 FUG 0 0 66 66 DMA 0 0 26 26 Others 0 3 0 5 (b) Operators 1 6 3 0 (c) TACs 0 19 1 0 (d) Others 2 4 2 2 Total 5 32 98 99