Leader: 118 - not so great?

Competition is supposed to stimulate a market, right?

When the UK takes the lead in deregulating a market you can be sure to get an interesting and - let's face it - often uncertain ride.

It's happened in areas such as digital TV, in telecoms in general and specifically in the world of directory enquiries (DQ) over the past 12 months - or more, if you count the people who started to use new numbers beginning 118 before the old 192 BT-run service was axed precisely 366 days ago.

News of a National Audit Office inquiry, seemingly unhappy with the way then-telecoms regulator Oftel handled the migration, sounds weighty but there is one key thing the move to 118 numbers supposedly showed - when all and sundry started advertising 118 services cheaper than their competitors, quite a few consumers turned around and asked: "You mean I pay for those calls?"

Yes, it seems many still thought they were free.

So actual enquiry calls fell in number and of course that was in a market that was by then divvied up several dozen ways.

The irony of all this is born out in another story today, related only in the sense that it is about a telecoms service. Analyst house Ovum predicts there is a future - albeit not as bright a future as some have suggested at times - for ringback tones in Europe.

Ringback tones are when you call someone and that individual has paid - in the same way they would for a ringtone or wallpaper - for their mobile not to give a regular ringing tone but to play a tune, film clip or joke to the caller.

Now you may have spotted that ringback tones are completely frivolous - a luxury no one really needs. And you may know, from personal experience no less, that using DQ is sometimes a big help, something that can save a lot of time and money.

Go figure.

We know an essentially fun bolt-on, mainly used by teenagers, is different to a directory service that is seen as a necessity and which was once free. But still - are we not giving DQ deregulation a chance?