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Tag Archives: BT
BT to include some Scottish cities in upgrade to superfast broadband
It’s amazing what can be done when the authorities take the brakes off the opportunity for profit. In the past week it was announced that Ofcom had informed BT that its wholesale prices to other broadband providers would not be capped.
Suddenly Scotland is to be included in the sheltered telecoms provider’s plans for superfast broadband development. Nothing specific has been said yet but Glasgow and Ediburgh are the most likely Scottish cities to be included in the fibre-optic cabling project.
Don’t celebrate too soon.
- Rural areas will not get superfast broadband for the foreseeable future unless the Government has the courage to go for a supply-led policy.
- Less than superfast br0adband subscribers will suffer an accelerating deficit in service as website designers in the Central Belt will inevitably – and rightly – use the new power at their disposal. This will mean sites with ever more speed-hungry features which we here will not be able to receive on our lame services.
- BT is being given all but a monopoly in this Ofcom decision. Other superfast broadband providers, who would compete with it for customers, may now be charged whatever BT likes.
At the very best this is anti-competitive as it will see a very narrow price differential. At worst it will choke competition. Either way it will stifle customer choice. This is not good news for the Argyll or for the most of Highlands and Islands – or for anyone without deep pockets.
BT scraps Friends & Family discount scheme
BT admitted earlier this week that it has had to write off £340million linked to its global business.
In possibly not unconnected moves, the company has now announced that it is dropping the 17 year-old domestic discount scheme, Friends & Family as well as its BestFriend scheme.
Friends & family offers BT’s 14million customers 10% off all calls made to up to 15 landlines. Chopping the scheme is said to ‘save’ – meaning gain - BT £250 milion. That is, of course, if all of its customers stay on.
Mark Hunter MP, who fights for consumer interests against rising telecom charges, says: ‘It is clearly unfair to ask customers to pay for the mistakes of the management’.
BT says that the increases in these phone charges are being offset by £200million a year in other discounts – but unlike the Friends & Family type of discount, BT’s new offers will require a monthly subscription.
Experience teaches that any offer by BT is invariably of less benefit to its customers that the company’s promotions suggest – and that savings in one area will be clawed back in another. In this instance there is to be a 45% – yes, a 45% – increase in the cost of caller services siuch as ring back, call waiting, call barring and caller display and an increase in line rental charges.
Caveat emptor indeed.
Sleight of hand on BT claim to drop charges for non-geographic 0845 and 0870 numbers
BT trumpets that it has bowed to public pressure at last and is scrapping charges to the ‘non-geographic’ 0845 and 0870 numbers from 16th January 2009. These currently cost callers 5.8p a minute.
That’s the headline. The emerging picture is rather different – and very typical of BT, whose discounts and offers rarely stand up to serious scrutiny in terms of delivering what they say on the tin.
The truth of the new situation is that these numbers may be called free only by those who have an all-in monthly subscription package with – BT Anytime. This accounts for only 1.4million people. Since a large proportion of the population, angry at BT’s charges and its Customer ‘Service’ have long departed to other service providers, most will not have this advantage.
A further 4.3 million people will be able to call 0845 and 0870 numbers free in the evenings and at weekends. This is a virtually useless concession since owners of such numbers – banks, doctors’ surgeries, building societies, insurance companies and utilities - are not normally at work at these times.
The move, such as it is, will cost BT £24million – they say – although it is hard to make this figure stand up. Charges for 0845 and 0870 numbers have come under sustained public protest. They are used by the sort of service providers listed above. These are services people need to contact on a regular basis and the high charge on such numbers were – are – seen as close to extortion.
While there are ways around having to use the numbers – and For Argyll has repeatedly advertised them – a lot of people still do not know about them or are intimidated by having to do anything that seems in any way subversive.
For Argyll has been lobbying public utility companies on the issue to get them to drop the use of such numbers – and will continue to do so.
NOTE: A regular site visitor has posted a response below – which For Argyll would wish to underline – that BTs full charges remain in place for everyone for 0871 and 0844 numbers. At up to 10p per minute, these numbers run at almost twice the tariff for the 0845 and 0870 numbers.
BT lets Jura down on broadband service – no connection for almost a week
Argyll’s Isle of Jura has had no broadband connection for almost a week. The fault is proving difficult to trace and BT‘s so-called Customer Services have pronounced that the problem lies with individual homes and is not a matter for their engineers.
Surely the fact that all the houses are experiencing simultaneous down-connections indicates that the fault is a general one. It defies logic that every household on the island would suddenly experience a different individual fault at the same time.
The preparedness to see an entire and remote island without its lifeline broadband connection is typical of the company. For Argyll has expressed concerns on many occasions that neither governments nor people in the UK have updated their historical perception of BT as a nationalised company. This leaves it with an unearned commercial advantage, in pole position for public contracts that might well be better served by rival companies and as the ‘authority’ in nationwide service development which is far from nationwide.
BT engineers are highly capable people but the company betrays them too in its lack of ay recognisable concept of ‘Customer Service’ – as this irresponsible response to the predicament on Jura demonstrates.
Moreover, as For Argyll has evidenced and included in its submission to the Scottish Broadcasting Commission, BT is singlehandedly responsible for the UK’s faiure to grasp the potential of the internet at the earliest opportunity.
Back in the days of a dial-up sevice, BT maintained call charges for a very long time. This frightened potential users into staying away from using the internet, seeing themselves faced with unanticipated and even uncontrollable bills from a company not famed for customer care.
The result was a very low take-up in internet subscriptions for a number of years. In consequence, the UK has not established the industry lead it might otherwise have done.
The truth of the situation is that BT is a hard-nosed commercial company in the private sector – as it needs to be – but it retains the old hotline to government and the public sector and an unchallenged position as a preferred supplier. All of this should be re-examined in the public interest, as those now silenced on Jura will surely agree.
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Resignation of NHS Scotland procurement manager responsible for BT contract under EC investigation
Following For Argyll’s earlier report that the EC was investigating NHS Scotland’s contract with BT for hospital network services, there has been a major development in the case. Michael Healy, Director of National Procurement for NHS division, National Services Scotland (NSS) since 2006 has resigned his post. This comes within two weeks of NHS officials having to make a formal response, explaining their actions to independent auditors installed by the EC. Mr Healy’s line manager, Ian Crichton, has accepted his resignation.
The EC investigation was concerned with allegations of an unfair tendering process in the award of a £30m nationwide hospital network contract to BT which had previously been operated by Cable & Wireless.
NHS Scotland had earlier awarded another multi-million pound contract to BT to provide a national broadband network for the health service. Also, in 2001, BT was awarded a £20.5m contract for the telecoms and IT infrastructure to enable Scots to access NHS 24.
National procurement was begun in 2005 under then Health Minister Andy Kerr, targeted on achieving annual savings within NHS Scotland of £50m by 2008. The savings were intended to free up funds for investing in patient care.
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BT staff call each other to fiddle MoD phone contract
The Audit Commission has required BT to pay £1.3million to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Staff at a call centre in Kettering in Northamptonshire were found to have met the performance targets built in to a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) between the MoD and BT by calling each other. The tactic was to help the company avoid fines for slow response to calls. The £3bn PFI contract is for BT’s running of the forces telephone network.
BT has sacked the staff concerned and taken the Kettering call centre out of the operation.
The Audit Commission – which is the public spending watchdog – pointed out that the incidents showed a need for uch more effective scrutiny of the way the expensive PFI contracts are delivered by contractors.
BT is now has to provide more detailed reporting and also undergo regular and detailed checks of the integrity of the reporting system itself.
PFI contracts remain highly controversial. They lay a long burden of debt on a country. In Scotland, First Minister, Alex Salmond, has shown that PFI contracts entered into by the previous Labour administrations cost the country £4,000 a year for every single member of the population.
I this instance, Lib Dem Defence Spokesman Nick Harvey says: ‘PFI projects should only be used where they can be clearly proved to provide the best value for money. Instead, the MoD appears to be signing up to PFI schemes without thinking, then throwing away millions abandoning them years later. This level of waste is scandalous when our troops are still going without vital equipment and helicopter support in the field’.
The MoD says that the project team concerned ‘has reviewed and strengthened their service assurance and management process, with the assistance of external independent advisors’.
EC investigates NHS Scotland BT phone network contract
NHS National Services Scotland, the procurement agency for NHS Scotland, awarded a three year contract to BT for the supplying a new telephone network system for the service. This includes all lines, exchanges, contact centres, calls and maintenance for all the Scottish Health Boards.
The service had previously been supplied by Cable and Wireless, a rival company to BT.
The European Commission has received a complaint over the award of the £30 million contract. The Scottish Government has confirmed that an EC investigation will take place and has, at the same time, reassured the public that this will not mean any disruption to any part of NHS Scotland’s telephone system.
For legal reasons no information can be given on the identity of the complainant, the nature of the complaint or the type of possible outcomes of the investigation.
BT had already been awarded a multi-million contract to provide a broadband service to NHS Scotland, including hospitals, clinics, GP surgeries and pharmacies.
In 2001 it was awarded a £20 million ten-year contract to link Scotland to the NHS 24 phone advice service.
World War II secret tunnel network under central London on the market
British Telecom is the current owners of a secret network of tunnels under central London. Built in 1940 these were designed as a deep air raid shelter network against attacks in World War II. Known as the Kingsway tunnels, BT hopes that the sale will net them offers around £5 million.
Any bets on Al Q’aeda becoming the new proprietor?
Council plays hardball with BT on phone boxes
BT is legally obliged to maintain phone boxes but is trying to get out from under its responsibilities. It has told Argyll and Bute Council that if it wants to keep forty nine rarely used phone boxes in Argyll, it wil have to pay for them – at a cost of £250,000 per annum.
The Council has written to BT reminding them of their legal position and pointing out that these phone boxes are in places where there is little or no mobile reception. They may not be regularly used but they have to be there for emergency communication.
It good to see the council, often accused of flexing its muscle with powerless members of its constituency, facing off the corporate bullies.