DMA Focus: Facts on ... Autodialler regulation

Silent calls received their fair share of press coverage last year.

Not only were they identified as causing 53 per cent of the population
unacceptable inconvenience, according to research by the DMA, but they
also caught the attention of the Government.

At the Labour party conference last year, Alan Johnson, secretary of

state for trade and industry declared that "we will increase ten-fold
the fines on companies that plague consumers with silent calls". And MP
John Hemmings challenged Ofcom to ban silent calls during Prime
Minister's Questions in June.

Last October, Ofcom amended its policy to combat the problem of silent
calls. A consultation period was quickly underway and comes to a close
on the 9 of this month. The two main changes concern the inclusion of an
information message, which is played for abandoned calls and the
lowering of the abandoned call rate to below three per cent.

"We are broadly in support of these changes," says Robert Dirskovski,
head of interactive media at the DMA. "But we are arguing for a stronger
resource to ensure policing of the regulations. Ofcom must bring to heal
miscreants who are flouting the rules."

Here is a summary of Ofcom's new policy on silent calls:

- Any abandoned calls must carry a recorded information message, which
identifies the source of the call and offers the person called an
opportunity to decline further calls from that source

- Caller line identification (CLI) must be presented on all outbound
calls from call centres using automated systems. CLI allows people to
dial 1471 and access the telephone number of the person or organisation
calling them

- Phone numbers dialled and abandoned should not be called again by that
firm's automated system for 72 hours, unless an operator is available to
take the call.

- Abandoned call rates must be below three per cent of total calls for
any 24-hour period for each campaign. This is a lower threshold than
existing published industry codes, which require a five per cent limit,
and is intended to require operators to manage their systems more
effectively.

- Records must be kept to demonstrate compliance with these
requirements.

The DMA is running a series of autodialler compliance seminars this
month, which are free to members. For more information see Bulletin
Board, page 57.