London -- Ofcom today published its approach to new voice services, including Voice over Broadband (VoB) phone services which deliver calls over the internet rather than via traditional telephone networks.

Ofcom believes that the emergence of these services will offer important benefits to consumers. Call costs should reduce significantly; where a call connects from one VoB service to another, the only cost to the consumer is typically a standard monthly fee, regardless as to whether the call is to the next town or to the other side of the world.

New voice services also offer consumers the prospect of innovative features currently the preserve of large corporations, such as sophisticated call handling and messaging, multi-party conference calls and video calls.

Additionally, the comparatively low cost of the technology required means that the barriers to entry for new companies are lower than those in traditional switched-circuit telephony. Ofcom believes that those advantages, coupled with increasing competition in the wholesale broadband market, are likely to mean that consumers will benefit from the choice of a wide range of providers.

Ofcom's approach is intended to minimise the regulatory burden associated with the creation and delivery of new voice services whilst ensuring that providers benefit from fair and effective competition in the infrastructure markets upon which they will depend.

Ofcom has therefore today:

Set out the telephone numbering available for new voiceservices, allowing providers to: