Vodafone UK’s CEO Ahmed Essam has added his voice to those in favour of Openreach’s proposed new pricing arrangement for its FTTP services, Equinox II.
Wed, 24/04/2024 - 15:41
Vorboss is calling on Ofcom to introduce an automatic compensation regime for business customers after finding that the UK economy has lost £17.6bn in the last 12 months due to fixed connectivity outages.
The provider’s report found that 61% of businesses that experienced an outage did not receive any compensation but lost an average of more than £11,000. For businesses based in London, the loss was £18,620.
That is due to an average of 314 lost hours (nearly 40 working days) of productivity per London business.
Ofcom introduced automatic compensation for consumers in 2019, and found the scheme increased compensation payments and saw more steps taken to fix issues.
Vorboss has written to Ofcom stating that it is time to introduce a similar scheme to protect UK businesses.
Tim Creswick, Founding CEO at Vorboss, said: “As the data in this report shows, the productivity uplift that would come from improved network quality is massive.
“We should all be incentivised to compete on quality, that would force an uplift in network performance, and in turn drive a much-needed economic boost.
“Ofcom's introduction of automatic compensation in the consumer market has been a success, pushing service providers to improve quality, while giving customers reassurance that compensation is real and tangible. If the scheme was extended to include businesses, we would see the same benefits, along with a significant productivity boost to London and the UK economy through reduced outages.”
