is a
Telecommunications provider based in
Kingston Upon Hull serving primarily the
East Riding Of Yorkshire .
On
22 August 1902 , Hull Corporation (which later became
Hull City Council ) was granted a licence to operate a municipal telephone system in the Kingston Upon Hull area, opening its first telephone exchange in 1904 at the former Trippett Street Baths.
At the time, there were a number of such municipal telephone companies around the UK, all of which - with the exception of Kingston Communications - were gradually absorbed in to the Post Office Telephone department, which was subsequently to become
British Telecom (BT).
Hull's bid to renew its licence in 1914 was made conditional on the £192,000 purchase of National Telephone networks infrastructure. The council gave its approval, securing the future of the country's one remaining municipally owned corporation.
Hull has therefore remained an exception within the UK telephone network, being the only place in the UK not served by BT, and is noted for its distinctive cream coloured
Telephone Boxes and innovative services, for example becoming the UK's first fully digital network in 1989 using
Marconi System X telephone switches (
Central Offices or
Class 5 Switches ).
Since then, due to the relatively unusual nature of its network topology Kingston has also been able to pioneer services such as
ADSL ,
Video On Demand and
Digital TV . In February 2006, Kingston Communications announced that it would be shutting its Video on Demand and Digital TV services (called Kingston Interactive TV - KIT) on
1 April 2006 .
Kingston Communications was floated on the London stock exchange in 1999, during the peak of dot.com euphoria, and soon found itself in the
FTSE 100 group of companies, only to exit the FTSE 100 shortly thereafter. The company celebrated its centenary five years later
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Kingston now consists of a number of group companies including Affiniti (merging Kingston InBusiness, Omnetica and technica) - its business integration and services arm and
Eclipse the Internet Service Provider and has a national 2000 km
SDH fibre-optic backbone.
Because of its small footprint, Kingston is also in an enviable position with respect to predatory behaviour by rival operators. Although it is under the same
OFCOM and
EU obligations with respect to
Local Loop Unbundling etc. the addressable market is so small that the economics do not - by and large - justify entry in to the market. To add more complications to any would be rival of KCom is the fact that the first 1Km of wire from the exchange is normally 0.5mm sq and Kcom have chosen to use 0.3mm sq. The key point here is that the DSLAMs in the exchange for connecting the ADSL are much more expensive for 0.3mm cable.
KCom has recently started to expand its residential phone services beyond the boundaries of Hull in to adjacent areas like Scunthorpe, and provides some businesses and residential areas of Lincoln with internet services, but its footprint is still minute compared with that of BT.
As residents and most businesses in Hull are only served by telecoms services by Kingston Communications, there are many service users unhappy with the effective monopoly position given to KC. British Telecom have attempted to set up business in Hull, but without success (despite supplying national and international connections to KC).
The main issue is that of Internet service provision; Kingston Communications
Karoo service is the only residential
Broadband operator in the Hull area. Issues include concerns over KCs
Acceptable Use Policy , the cost of the service and the inability to use other providers.
In December 2005, Giacom, the owner of Hull24 - a rival broadband provider in the Hull area - complained to OFCOM regarding the provision of network access to KC's rivals. The complaint is that "Giacom alleges that Kingston is not providing
access on reasonable terms as Kingston's pricing is anti-competitive and prohibitive to service providers [other than KC ". In April 2006 Giacom and Kingston resumed negotiations on a deal to allow Hull24 to use KC's network, as a result Giacom withdrew its complaint and Ofcom has closed the case.[http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/comp_bull_index/comp_bull_ccases/closed_all/cw_878/].
In August 2007 the alleged monopoly of KComm (Nee: Kingston Communications) was referred to the
European Commission by
Yorkshire And Humber MEP Diana Wallis .
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The ground shared by
Hull City Football club and the
Hull FC Rugby League team is sponsored by and named after Kingston Communications - the
Kingston Communications Stadium , more commonly known simply as the
KC Stadium . Kingston Communications have also been announced as the shirt sponsor for Hull City from the 2007-08 season for at least two years. "Karoo" will appear on the home (amber) shirts and "Kingston Communications" will feature on the away (white) kit.
