The UK Office of Telecommunications yesterday announced access deficit charge waivers for eight budding UK phone companies and immediately won a welcome from Mercury Communications Ltd and a brickbat from British Telecommunications Plc, which complained that the regulator is discriminating against its customers – BT understands why Oftel might wish to give some time-limited short-term advantage to new competitors, however, long-established competitors should pay the same as BT itself does when they use BT lines, it said – it says the cost of providing exchange lines and connection exceeds the rental revenue and connection charges it receives from its customers currently by an estimated ?1,450m; companies that won waivers until March 31 1996 for international simple resale are ACC Long Distance UK Ltd, WorldCom International Inc, City of London Telecommunications Ltd, MFS Communications Ltd and Energis Communications Ltd – provided they continue to hold less than 10% of the international simple resale market; all those operating within the UK also won waivers on up to a 10% share of the domestic market, as did Telewest Communications Ltd, Groupe Videotron Ltee and Nynex Corp; Mercury already pays access deficit charges on international, but not on domestic, calls.
