The UK market is often seen as a test-bed for liberalised telecommunications markets, since it was among the first to see competition, but if a new report from CIT Research of London is to be believed, dominant carriers will remain so for the foreseeable future. The report, Business Telecoms Trends in the UK 1995, published by CIT and Westerham, Kent-based Westcombe Business Research Ltd, has revealed an alarming ignorance about telecommunications competition, with 59% of those responsible for buying telecommunications services not comparing the tariffs of different telephone companies, and over 75% ignorant of the existence of Energis Ltd. The report, which covered 1,500 businesses in the UK, also revealed that nearly half of all respondents has only considered one supplier for their last major telecommunications service contract (which, in two thirds of cases, was British Telecommunications Plc). Moreover, few said they would go about selecting a supplier differently next time. According to Graham Wilde, CIT’s managing director, although most people surveyed were aware of the existence of alternatives to British Telecom, the majority of them could not name any except Mercury Communications Ltd. As to why they stick to British Telecom, he said that the majority still regard the company as a safe bet.
