The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (''the telecommunications regulator'') was a department in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

government, under

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that ...

market. It was set up under the

Telecommunications Act 1984 The Telecommunications Act 1984 (c 12) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The rules for the industry are now contained in the Communications Act 2003. Provisions The provisions of the act included the following: * Privatising ...

after privatisation of the nationalised operator BT. Oftel was accused by critics such as

Freeserve Freeserve was a British Internet service provider, which was founded in 1998. At its height, the company became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, before merging into the Wanadoo group in 2000. It then became a subsidiary of France Telecom ...

of having been " captured" by BT, and of giving the dominant operator too much freedom to leverage its

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

status in fixed line telephony into other markets such as

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

. On 29 December 2003, the duties of Oftel were inherited by

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

, which was the result of the consolidation of five separate British telecommunications, radio spectrum and broadcasting regulators.

Director-General of Oftel

*Bryan Carsberg 1 August 1984–12 June 1992 *Bill Wigglesworth (acting) 13 June 1992 – 31 March 1998 *

Donald Cruickshank Sir Donald Gordon Cruickshank (born September 1942) is a Scottish businessman, whose career has straddled public and private sector. Career Many of the businesses that Cruickshank has worked for or chaired have been engaged in the media sect ...

1 April 1993 – 31 March 1998 * David Edmonds 1 April 1998–29 December 2003

Notes

Communications authorities History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom Information technology organisations based in the United Kingdom Regulators of the United Kingdom Telecommunications organisations in the United Kingdom {{telecom-stub

Director-General of Oftel

See also

Notes