Please read this item for full details of the coming changes.

Over the next few days, there will be significant changes to the content of the News Feed. Its name and online location will not be changed, so update subscribers will see a large number of apparently new entries which they will have seen before. This sort of glitch often occurs accidentally, but on this occasion we can apologise for any inconvenience in advance.

The significant change in content will be in coverage of our own activity, where everything of relevance will appear on the News Feed as a permanent, rather than passing, record. The “Blog”, with its archive feature, will continue separately.

All items on the News Feed will now be “tagged” with codes to indicate the topic being covered. A new News Feed enquiry function will be provided to enable coverage of a particular topic to be selected. This feature already exists for the Blog.

Options to subscribe to only updates of particular types and on particular topics will also be provided.

Please bear with us as we implement these enhancements and please feel free to offer any comments and suggestions. Comments can be added to this Blog entry or made through our Contact Form.

We are keen for supporters to offer suggestions of items to be included in the news feed. This can be done now, by emailing newsfeed@fairtelecoms.org.uk. We are also considering providing a mechanism for this to be done more directly, by having an accessible “social media” account that can be posted to by using the “share” feature commonly seen on internet news items. Please let us know how you feel this could best be done.  (Obviously, where ‘share by email’ is offered, this is already available.)

This news release introduces the term "Telephone Tax", and explains how the Telephone Tax applies in relation to government policy and other activity.

Following research, as part of a (in)Action Plan, Ofcom again chooses not to use its powers, whilst claiming "Ofcom is using the full extent of its legal powers"

Pulse magazine has now decided to remove from publication a comment which it previously published at the foot of the article - NHS England to crack down on GP use of 0844 phone numbers.

A further version of the comment has been submitted and published with all references to specific named parties removed and offering to produce evidence to sustain all remarks. Given that many parties are named in the article itself, have unique functions and / or hold a particular position with reference to this issue, it is difficult to see how removal of the actual name makes any difference when commenting on the article. We will see if this second attempt is removed also.

As the author is identified as having made a comment that has been removed, it is disappointing that he has not been notified of the reason for the removal.