OfcomWatch friend Keith McMahon of Telebusillis offers a skeptical view about where Ofcom is headed with respect to VoIP regulation.

Put in the larger context of the Junk Food Ad Ban and ITV control issues, McMahon says he is ‘worried, extremely worried about OFCOM’.

Comment: I’m not sure Elizabeth Judge has this story correct, so criticism (or praise) of the alleged VoIP policy may be premature.

Like me, McMahon is also suffering with Talk Talk broadband service. In an earlier post, I advised the OfcomWatch faithful to avoid Talk Talk for broadband. Well, my flatmate finally got our service working and — because I am in Budapest at the moment — he sent me an (unintentionally) hilarious email which shows how poor the Talk Talk service is. The relevant part of the email:

* Our modem is a Phillips model supplied by TalkTalk. If asked on the phone, TT will disavow all knowledge of a Phillips modem existing. Even if they admit they sell one they will claim to not be able to offer technical support for it. Basically, don’t call them.

* There is a tech support no for our modem which TT provides - it’s 0800 049 7666. Don’t call it either. It leads nowhere except to recorded messages (and that’s if you can get through).

* In the unlikely event you really need tech support, go to the Carphone Warehouse in Cornmarket (Branch ID 333) and ask ([redacted]… he’s the most helpful) to email [redacted] from the LLU/Faults team in Northampton… [redacted] knows our situation and specifically said we should get in touch with him direct if we had another problem. If that fails, email a woman named [redacted]. She’s very helpful and works in the high level ‘escalations’ unit… she can also probably arrange for [redacted] to call us. She also works in the same section as [redacted] - the guy who miraculously owns a Phillips TalkTalk modem too and actually finally solved our problems over the phone with me.

So, there you have it: In order to deal with Talk Talk you need to have lots of free time and be able to muscle your way through an incompetent organisation. Will Ofcom ever take enforcement action against Talk Talk for putting thousands of consumers through this agony? Talk Talk need to agree to a set of binding obligations with Ofcom related to their conduct in the broadband marketplace.