Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Bryan Carsberg, the man who watches over Britain’s telecommunications
industry, is in a novel position. In June he will have the chance to investigate
himself.

Last year Carsberg, as director-general of the Office of Telecommunications
(Oftel), blessed British Telecom’s plan to add an extra digit to every telephone
number in Britain. When all numbers change at Easter 1994, subscribers may
have to waste up to £100 billion on modifying or scrapping telephone
equipment which stops working because of the extra digit.

Now Peter Lilley, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has shunted
Carsberg from Oftel to the Office of Fair Trading, as the office’s director-general.
The first file he finds on his desk is likely to be a complaint about his
handling of the telephone numbering plan, since one duty of the office is
to ‘identify trading practices that are adverse to the economic interests
of consumers’.