Biscit barrels out of ISPA

Talkin' bout a resolution...service

By John Oates • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 26th February 2007 16:08 GMT

Troubled internet service provider Biscit has left ISPA - the industry association which among other things provides membership of dispute resolution service CICAS.

It is a legal requirement for any company providing electronic communication services to be a member of a dispute resolution service - members of ISPA are automatically members of CICAS. The other option is an organisation called Otelo. Both organisations provide a supposedly neutral umpire in case you fall out with your provider. Both organisations say Biscit is not currently a member.

A spokesman for ISPA told us: "They resigned last week and didn't give a reason."

A spokesman for Ofcom told us: "It is a requirement that any provider of electronic communications should be a member of an ADR (alternative dispute resolution) - if they are not then they are in breach of Ofcom regulations. We don't reveal specific companies which we are investigating but certainly if we received a complaint about this we would get in touch to make sure the company were doing something about it."

We rang Biscit for a response but didn't have any luck.

Speaking to the Reg on Thursday Biscit's just ex-CEO Hugh Paterson assured us everything was fine. He told us he had left the board so he could concentrate fully on "Biscit's future roadmap".®.

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