Ofcom Investigates BT Over Accuracy of UK Telecoms Information Requests

The telecoms regulator has this morning opened a new investigation into BT, which will examine whether the information they provided in relation to a range of data – concerning the experience of customers who have entered into an agreement or placed an order for fixed phone and broadband services from EE and Plusnet – was accurate.

Ofcom currently has various information gathering powers to help them assess, monitor and govern the market. Naturally, communication providers are generally required to provide information, in a reasonable period of time, when responding to such requests. Crucially such providers are also required to ensure that the information they supply is accurate, to avoid misleading the regulator.

In this case the regulator issued several such requests to BT’s entities, specifically Plusnet and EE, under Section 137A of the Communications Act 2003 on 7th December 2023. The requests required the provision of information (i.e. a range of data concerning the experience of customers who have entered into an agreement or placed an order for fixed phone and broadband services) to inform the 2025 Comparing Customer Service Report.

However, Ofcom indicates that “some” of BT entities may not have complied with the requirements, due to issues of accuracy and completeness.

Ofcom Statement

Ofcom’s statutory information requests play a key part in Ofcom’s work and the information gathered from these requests informs how Ofcom carries out its statutory functions as a regulator. It is therefore essential that stakeholders provide accurate and complete information in a timely fashion. Where Ofcom has reasonable grounds for believing that a contravention of a requirement imposed under section 137A of the Act has occurred or is occurring, Ofcom may take enforcement action under section 138 of the Act.

The available evidence suggests the responses of some BT entities may not have complied with certain requirements imposed under section 137A, in that some of the information provided in response to the Notices may not have been complete and/or accurate. Ofcom’s investigation will examine whether there are reasonable grounds for believing BT has failed to comply with its statutory duties in relation to Ofcom’s information requests.

We will gather further information and publish an update to our investigation in due course.

Such investigations tend to be quite long-winded affairs and often only result in relatively small to modest fines, as well as a need for improvements in the operator’s processes and systems. For example, in 2018 the regulator fined BT £70k for similar issues (here) and in 2021 they were hit with another such fine of £42.5k (here), while O2 was fined £150k in 2021 (here).

We suspect something similar could be the outcome for this case, unless the issue is deemed to be more serious.