PhoneAbility

2. Definition of PATS

PhoneAbility strongly welcomes the revised definition of a Publicly Available Telephone (Telecommunications) Service. By including the provision of emergency access in the definition of a PATS, what should have been an obligation upon any telephone service offered to the public became an exclusion which allowed various types of alternative public services to escape this – and other – obligations. PhoneAbility has argued that it is vital for users of telephone services to be able to make emergency calls in the modality that they use every day for, in the stress of an emergency situation, it would be potentially confusing to have to select a different service and, possibly, a different terminal. Such confusion could be life-threatening and it is not a sufficient remedy to point to a facility provided by the network that supplies the connection. PhoneAbility believes that providers of other telephone services that are carried over that connection (including those on broadband) should either offer access to emergency services themselves or ensure that emergency calls automatically default to the network of the basic service provider.  The revised definition of a PATS should enable Regulators to insist upon this level of service.

The current definition of a PATS is “a service available to the public for originating and receiving national and international calls and access to emergency services through a number or numbers in a national or international telephone numbering plan, and in addition may, where relevant, include one or more of the following services: the provision of operator assistance, directory enquiry services, directories, provision of public pay phones, provision of service under special terms, provision of special facilities for customers with disabilities or with special social needs and/or the provision of non-geographic services”. 

While this definition certainly described the common understanding of what a public telephone service should be, the inclusion of the reference to ‘access to emergency services’ as an integral part had the effect that any service which did not offer this access could not be regarded as a PATS. Many of the obligations in these Directives, and the powers which are given to NRAs in consequence, are applicable only to operators of PATS, so some types of service which might seem to the user to be PATS in fact are not and NRAs cannot insist upon provision of facilities of the kind described.  Users who select carriers other than their contracted service provider may find that some expected facilities are not available. In the case of emergency calls this could be very serious, unless there is a default mechanism to route the call through the network of the basic provider.

The proposed revision to the definition is that “publicly available telephone service means a service available to the public for originating and receiving, directly or indirectly via carrier selection or pre-selection or resale, national and/or international calls through a number or numbers in a national or international telephone numbering plan”.