AT LEAST one intervenor is asking the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) for more time to prepare submissions on the effectiveness of the price cap, or to recommend other incentive mechanisms, for telecoms rate setting.

Hallam Hope, managing director of Caritel, told a price cap review session yesterday that instead of a one-month period to review Cable & Wireless' "financials", and research ideal mechanisms, in future, the period should be four months.

"These two major areas call for considerable work," Hope said, "and one month, I think, is really inadequate, and in the interest of transparency and practicality, I think we should probably have asked for four months."

The other area of concern addressed by Hope was the issue of information and the quality and kind that the FTC could provide intervenors to help them prepare.

Hope referred to a letter he had written to the FTC last Friday. "I would like the FTC to look at the possibility of investigating what sort of information consumers really need," he said; "what sort of information that can be made available to them; [and] what mechanisms can be used to cover the issue of confidentiality." (AB)