High demand has been mainly driven by China, a country in which economic growth is perceived to be slowing down, but the implications of demographic growth are overlooked. Despite fears that commodities have peaked, I believe that the global demand for raw materials will grow. We hope actions like this will send a strong message."Freecall and Orb have until 9 November to sign the Ofcom undertakings, or face a court battle over with the regulator.. Lack of supply and excess demand for commodities has made it clear to me that this is more than a normal cyclical bull market. This is apparently the beginning of a long-term secular bull market, or "supercycle", and, as such, we have taken an overweight position in mining stocks to benefit from the overall upturn in commodity prices. The telecoms regulator has told Freecall and Orb Communications that they must both sign undertakings not to repeat unfair practices, or face court action.
This is the latest development in the scandal of "slamming" in the telecoms industry. BT claims to receive 21,000 complaints a month from consumers who believe they have been misled into signing up for services from rival telecoms providers. Ofcom said Freecall and Orb had broken a number of consumer protection regulations, including failing to warn customers they were entitled to cancel contracts within seven days, and demanding payments for services supplied to consumers that they had not agreed to.Ofcom also warmed Freecall had made statements to potential customers that might have wrongly suggested the company was part of BT, or authorised to act on its behalf.BT recently fought a number of legal actions over similar allegations, amid concern that rivals have been attempting to poach its customers by suggesting they are working with BT.Although Ofcom is keen to see more competition between phone services suppliers, it is concerned that rogue salesmen are trying to win business by using misleading tactics. The problem mirrors a similar scandal which followed the opening up of the gas and electricity markets.The regulator said: "This investigation is part of a sequence of investigations into misconduct by individual communications providers. They form part of a wider campaign that includes the active enforcement programme to monitor compliance with new regulations designed to prevent mis-selling in fixed-line telecoms and protect consumers from abuses such as slamming."BT said: "Up to 21,000 customers a month are complaining to us about sharp selling practices yet no company admits to wrongdoing. Ofcom has given final warnings to two Birmingham-based companies accused of mis-selling telephone services.
Now, the new generation and the generations to follow are going to be pulling out of the universe what media they want to feel relevant." Never too late to learn, sure, but I hope they start moving BSkyB online very soon indeed.Email: s.o'grady independent.co.uk. So BT is a telecoms company going into TV, and Sky is a TV broadcaster going into telecoms, or the internet.Yet I wouldn't write BSkyB off. For a start, the existing business is not kaput, even if it has its problems. I notice, for example, that you can now get free, illegal, feeds from Chinese websites of English Premiership football games (albeit with a Mandarin commentary) Second, there is that stake in Freeview as a hedge. The markets don't seem to have been too impressed with the BSkyB move and the shares are now at about the 500p mark, pretty much a year's low and one-fifth below where I bought them.Things haven't been improved by the announcement by BT that it is going to start delivering digital TV on the internet. The situation is a little complicated by the fact that BSkyB owns a quarter-share in Freeview anyway. No, this is a broadband business that has been bought up by BSkyB; as it happens, also a company I hold shares in.BSkyB has been a lacklustre performer.