NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 11:31am:


I HATE working for BT, recently a company wide email was sent around warning all the workers not to discuss BTs polocies on forums and the like because of me. Who do you think broke the news to an admin here about BT getting rid of the ICP and LUS?
BT wont give me a contract with them (yep, Im agency employed) as I keep getting warnings on my file as I challange BT policy in public and am seen as a 'troublemaker' as I try to do whats best for customers rather than hitting my targets.
You are obsessed with where I work and seem to think that Im defined by my job. Get real, start to look at how often I disagree with BT, then look at the fact that THE TOPIC OF HOW MUCH LINES COST TO UPKEEP IS DEFINED BY OFCOM NOT BT.
But your personal vendetta against BT makes you blind to that.

So again: why is your opinion a better guide than the official reports and stats?

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 12:36pm:


To answer both these:

1)I agree that only having BT availability is a risky buisness for sure. I am hoping that cable will become more and more freely available in order to increase compatition (though most cable charges are at a similer price).  Hopefully Sky and Virgin sort out the TV fued quickly so Virgin can concentrate on the phone side of it.

2) IF I stay at BT I would want to work in the complaints team so I can help people out. Otherwise I want to work in a book store (I love books ).
Either way as I am becoming my partners carer soon i will be getting part time hours either way.

andy9 wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 11:23am:

You make a very interesting point, andy9, and one which has crossed my mind before. OK, so 'if' is a big word, but it was privatised by the Tory government which the ethos that competition would bring prices down. I do not like being lied to.

At the time I imagined that the one telegraph pole near me would be joined by other telegraph poles as competitors built their networks. But of course that was never going to happen. Look at BT's main competitor, cable, or Virgin Media as it is now known. IIRC it started off as separate companies. I know round here it was Yorkshire Cable, but inevitably individual companies have been swallowed up and now are one. The thing is that cable was only installed in urban areas where there was going to be plenty of business. Anywhere else and they didn't want to know.

As I said elsewhere, telephone isn't like gas and electric because they have one distribution network with many different providers putting in and taking out the gas/electric. With telephones, the network you connect to is operated by the telco you are with (unless you're with a LLU provider, but it's still a BT pair of copper wires). So this means that my original vision of competition being brought about by having several different providers' networks running down every street was not far off.

Now look at the mobile infrastructure in this country. It started off privatised and if we take the four public GSM networks, O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile we see that they have had to build their networks to cover the same areas. So we have areas of the country that aren't covered by some or all networks and we have urban areas where there are, in effect, four times as many base stations as is techincally necessary to provide a mobile telephone service in that location.

I have applied andy9's thinking to this and come to the conclusion that we have a quarter of the coverage we could have and/or we are paying four times as much as we need to because of this waste in equipment. Whilst I accept that this guestimate may be out, I do think that there is something in it and that is wastage of infratsructure when privatisation was supposed to get rid of this.

Also, we now pay through the nose to call someone on another network versus our own. It is also cheaper to call destinations abroad than other networks on some tariffs. People changing numbers is commonplace. With a mobile being mobile it stands to reason that even if someone moves to the other end of the country, they can keep the same number. But the network operators make it cheaper to take out 'new' contracts because statistics of 'new' subscribers are more important than a basic technical requirement that someone should keep the same number. All of this has been brought about by privatisation and the supposed need for competition, but all these years later we still have to put up with it.

Consider other industries like motor industry. Pretty much every manufacturer has a dealership in every town. So there is uniform coverage and choice there. But compare the need to have a separate outlet (dealership) for every car manufacturer and a telephone network which must have 100% coverage. That's cables down every street or radio base stations every how every often.

darkstar wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 1:38pm:


Sadly having met a number of Ofcom's senior staff I do not believe ineptness is in any way the problem and nor is it conventional corruptness in the sense of money changing hands.  However it is corruptness in the sense of the body failing to fulfil its principal duty under the Communications Act 2003 to protect the best interests of the UK citizen consumer.

I believe the senior staff of Ofcom are mainly motivated to help their old colleagues and possibly future colleagues too in the telecoms industry run as profitable a business as they possibly can and/or to do the bidding of Tessa Jowell and New Labour ministers to not regulate in a way that damages the businesses of important New Labour friends like Rupert Murdoch.  And the main reason they in turn want to do that is to obtain as much career advancement as they personally can and/or possibly even honours such as a knighthood or peerage in the case of their most senior staff and of course career advancement does usually also mean more money for the people involved, even if not by direct transfer processes from the telcos, which clearly would be illegal and I am also equally sure are not happening.

Perhaps that is what you have yet to learn about Ofcom.  That it is not inept at all but merely very good at turning a deaf ear to those interest groups that do not suit the agenda it is actually pursuing, whatever it say is its principal duty in the Communications Act 2003.

Dave wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 1:56pm:


Transco come out in just one hour 24 hours a day for any gas problem of even modest concern (like a gas regulator I had fail in fully open position the night before I was going on holiday).  BT frequently already take several days to fix things and don't work Saturday afternoon, Sundays or Bank Holidays usually unless thousands of customers are affected by the fault in question.

As long as an adequate Service Level Agreement is in place as well as suitable large penalties for not hitting the relevant targets all should be well.  It is the lack of adequate fines and powers given to most UK regulators that leads to things going down hill.  And company directors should go to prison if their gross negligence leads to people being killed.

darkstar wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 12:41pm:


Hmmm.  Having dealt with the BT High Level Complaints team staff even they don't really seem able to help you out.  They just come up with rather more bizarre and elaborate excuses BT still for not doing what customers want.

I would definitely try a book store if I was you.  So much more human and rewarding than a call centre.

Sorry to hear about your partner.  That sounds bad.  I have no idea of course what age you are.

Dave wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 2:05pm:


I wasn't talking about mobiles but only about fixed line phone calls.  There is far more choice available in mobiles including Pay As You Go with no line rental and very cheap off peak rates.  I only spend about £20 a year on calls on my mobile phone.

There should be far more variety on fixed line rental structures than there is.  The current set up is blatantly a cartel with everyone playing follow the BT leader.