Ofcom stats suggest migration issues declining

Ofcom has published a revision divulging that it will expand its GC22 enforcement programme for a further six months and will respond to individual notification of infringement to the migration rules. This move is a manifestation of the fact that migration complaints have decreased from 825 in March 2007 to 517 in January 2008.

An update to Ofcom own-initiative investigation into migrations stated “Ensuring that consumers are able to switch their broadband supplier quickly, easily and with minimal service disruption remains a priority for Ofcom. We have therefore decided to extend the GC22 enforcement programme for a further six months. Industry players should now expect that Ofcom may proceed directly to individual notifications of contravention without any further warnings where our investigation of an ISP demonstrates sufficient evidence of contravention of GC22.”

This amendment will support those being deprived of an straightforward migration to a new service provider to protest to Ofcom who are now looking to chase individual cases and hold providers responsible.

This is a small but potentially important transformation in how Ofcom will deal with providers that are close to the boundaries of the migration rules or openly breaking them.