Ofcom wants to ease the pain of switching mobile networks. Good luck UK regulator Ofcom has started a consultation aimed at consumers to find out how hard it is to switch mobile phone networks, and eventually put in place processes which reduce the pain of switching, while also eliminating “slamming” where a company fraudulently migrates a customer. The consultation is a follow-up to previous …
In Ireland you can move mobile provider and get your number ported across in about 30 minutes, with no hassle and minimum bellendery. Because operators were basically made to do so. None of this "Oh, you need to give us 30 days notice to end your contract and only at the end can you ask for a PAC, at which point we'll ignore the request for two weeks" nonsense that's the norm in the UK.
So I say, as a citizen of that fine Republic - if a country as small and generally legislatively useless as Ireland can manage it, there's no reason other than tactically-pocketed brown envelopes that the same couldn't be achieved in the UK.
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Speaking as someone who's changed providers once since 1998, I'd still love to see the process become easier - anything that avoids being redirected to a "customer services retention operative" is a good move in my book.
But the protection from slamming has to be in there from day zero and not tacked on as an afterthought after a hojillion people find themselves paying many extra punds after they unwittingly find themselves transferred to Totally Honest MVNO Guv LLC with the voluntary mandatory "Save Up To 120 Hours Of Voicemail A Day!" package for only £75 a month.
I know we've supposedly got protection from OfCom here in the UK but I don't think they have nearly enough teeth for this kind of thing, especially retrospectively when people have already lost their money and the fly-by-nights are nowhere to be seen.
This is the main (only?) aspect that makes the current system worth retaining. Getting a PAC from the current network should reduce to almost nil the changes of slamming (a popular practice in the Energy industry or have regulator memories forgotten this?).
It should be possible to get the PAC via the current operator's website (I think the story notes this as an option). People calling their current operator should get through to the right person within 5 minutes. The PAC should be issued (verbally and by SMS) within 5 minutes of the call being picked up. Fine all violations of these times at £10k per occurrence. This keeps the slamming protection of the current system but ensures minds are focused to prevent existing operators taking the piss by making it obscenely difficult to get the PAC.
I've only moved operator once - from Orange to Vodafone in 2006. Orange claimed they couldn't give the PAC over the phone or by SMS and could only post it for security (total BS!). Voda held the agreed deal until I got the PAC then did the port. Since then I've called Voda several times for my PAC as a starting point for contract renewal and always been given it within 10 minutes of dialling the number (YMMV as always!).
Slamming is easily delt with. You just use fines. Massive, MASSIVE fines. Say £10,000 per customer. Or better still you make it so unless the mobile provider can PROVE the customer wanted to move, they can't bill them for ANY services and instead have to pay the customer £100 a month. And make the mobile companies MD personally liable. See problem sorted.
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“Consumers should be able to switch their mobile providers with minimum hassle to take advantage of the best deals on the market," said Sharon White
All fine and dandy, if you have a choice of coverage. Here we don't, it's EE or nothing. Now I have to say that EE have not let us down, so far, but if they were to screw up in some spectacular way and we wanted to move, we couldn't. We're stuck. So no matter how easy the transfer was, without competition it would be a meaningless gesture.
Maybe Ofcom should think about making transfers possible before they think about making them easy?
Twice in the past, I've phoned my provider to ask for a PA Code, and their response, to my amusement, was "Do you mean a PAC Code".
Of course, this response leaves you with a quandary... Answer "yes" for an easy life, or "no" to begin a world of painful explanation, only for the operator to conclude that you are actually in the wrong.
Ho-hum.
I often suffer this same issue when I refer to PA Testing.
Smile and nod. Smile and nod.....
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