Phone home

Home phone providers are currently bombarding us with an ever more complex range of offers and reasons to switch to them. Rob Harrison asks whether any of these companies — so keen for our business &mdash have ever heard of ethics?

According to the latest data, around 62% of us still use BT for our home phones.(1) No doubt a lot of this is to do with an 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' approach to technology. But with the latest round of changes in the rules for suppliers, it's becoming increasingly easy to switch.

All of the suppliers in this report, for example, offer 'line rental' as well as 'call billing' which means that switching is less complex than before. You'll only get one phone bill, just from someone that isn't BT. And despite the ubiquity of mobile phones, there's still money to be made from landlines. This means that there are more companies looking for your business than ever before &mdash and some of them are multinationals like BSkyB, Orange and Tesco.

Why move from BT?

Although BT's ethiscore doesn't put it at the top of our list, there is no doubt among environmentalists that it is well ahead of the other players in terms of environmental management and reporting. Both the Post Office and BT get Ethical Consumer's best rating, but BT has been the top ranked telecoms company in the world in the (not perfect) Dow Jones Sustainability Index for seven years in a row.(2) It has also been praised particularly for taking on difficult social issues such as addressing the rich/poor digital divide. For some, its military involvement may count as a negative, though it just supplies communications equipment rather than lethal weapons.

The bottom line is that none of the other companies, with the honourable exception of the Phone Co-op and the Post Office, come close in terms of demonstrating a mature approach to corporate responsibility issues. And some, such as Sky (Rupert Murdoch) and Tesco (monopoly), are considerably worse. Orange picks up its 'nuclear power' mark becuase it is 32% owned by the French state (through France Telecom).

With companies falling over themselves to claim green credentials it's surprising BT doesn't make more of its leadership in the field.

The Phone Co-op is a consumer co-operative which customers can join to vote on policy as well as receive dividends in good years. Although a tiny player compared to the others, it is striving to become a clear ethical alternative. Its turnover recently passed the £5 million mark at which point Ethical Consumer expects mature policy and reporting details. Ethical Consumer is an affiliate partner of the Phone Co-op.

What's on offer?

The main reason people switch phone provider is price. And it is clear that there are savings to be made, especially if you buy your phone line 'bundled' with other services like broadband.(3) Indeed, many of the new players in the home phone market are broadband and mobile phone companies. More details on the services available also appear in the Company Profiles below.

Supply chain policies

Ethical Consumer has a policy of requiring supply chain policies addressing workers' rights issues for companies whose supply chains stretch into low wage economies. We have recently adopted a policy of requiring them in the telecoms sector because almost all companies now supply electronic hardware (routers/modems) as part of a broadband sign up process. All of the companies in this report, apart from BT, could improve in this respect. It would also be good to see policies on toxic chemicals (such as brominated flame retardants) in equipment to mirror the developments Greenpeace is encouraging in the electronics industry generally.

Company Profiles

Telecom plus, operating as the Utility Warehouse Discount Club, offers its services to more than 200,000 residential and small business customers in the UK, using the collective power of its clients to negotiate bulk-buying deals with bigger suppliers.

Virgin Media The combination of cable companies Telewest and NTL with Virgin Mobile has created Virgin Media (TV, internet, fixed-line and mobile phone). Richard Branson's Virgin Group, which licenses out the Virgin name, only holds 10.5% of the shares in Virgin Media,(4) so the company does not pick up marks for the Group's involvement in other controversial areas like aviation and cosmetics. Its services come by cable but if you are not in a cabled area you can still get Virgin services down the BT phone line. Virgin offers bundles including phone, TV and broadband.

Carphone Warehouse runs more than 2,100 shops in Europe, selling mobile phones and services along with home phones. It bought Onetel from British Gas/Centrica in December 2005 and is currently rebranding it under its Talk Talk name, so see Talk Talk for a rating of Onetel.

BSkyB 75% of British Sky Broadcasting Group's (BSkyB) revenues come from its pay satellite TV service. Rupert Murdoch?s News Corp owns 38% of BSkyB, and Rupert?s son James Murdoch is CEO.

KCOM Group In 2007 Hull City Council sold its 31% stake in Kingston Communications, ending its tenure as the country's only municipally owned telecom company. Now Kingston supplies businesses and selected consumer markets in the UK. KC Talk is for customers in East Yorkshire whilst Kingston Communications TalkMore is for national UK customers.

Tiscali is an internet specialist based in Sardinia and has been trading only since 1998.

Tesco The BIG Campaign (a boycott of Israeli products, services and companies organised by the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign) had called a boycott of Tesco Stores Limited for the stocking of Israeli produce.

References

1 Ofcom Telecommunications Market Data Tables 2007 Q2 2 ENDS Report 383 December 2006 3 Which February 2008 Home Phone Bundles 4 http://investors.virginmedia.com viewed 18/1/08