This statement concerns the discontinuation of the control on British Telecommunications plc ("BT")'s wholesale charges for handling calls to 999 and 112.
The service known as the Public Emergency Call Service is provided to other providers of electronic communications services. All providers of publicly available telephone services are obliged to offer their retail customers access to the emergency services at no charge, and most rely on BT's PECS to answer and deliver these calls. The PECS includes call answering by trained operators, conveyance of the call from a point of interconnection with the originating operator to the call answering centre and onward conveyance of the call to the appropriate emergency authority. Although retail calls to 999 and 112 are free of charge, providers of communications services must pay for the underlying wholesale service.