back to article 'Tough' UK public sector blamed in BT sales hiccup

Sales dropped 2 per cent to £17.85bn for telco giant BT's full-year results announced today, while profits increased 12 per cent to £3.17bn compared with the previous year. The company primarily blamed its drop in sales on the foreign exchange market, while attributing the profit boost to an efficiency and cost-cutting …

  1. Captain Hogwash
    Flame

    WHERE'S MY FTTC?

    GRRR!!!

    1. Blitheringeejit
      Mushroom

      Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

      Our local cabinet is listed by BT as "imminent" for FFTC conversion.

      At the time of writing it's been "imminent" for about 18 months.

      Meanwhile they're spending all the money the taxpayer gave them to improve rural broadband on football rights.

      For those of us old enough to remember the promised benefits of privatisation in the 80s, BT was, is and ever shall be a pertinent lesson - and on election day, perhaps it's one we should bear in mind vis-a-vis the NHS.

      Double-GRRR!!! with knobs on.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

        "For those of us old enough to remember the promised benefits of privatisation in the 80s, BT was, is and ever shall be a pertinent lesson"

        Indeed. You no longer have a two month wait to get a voice line installed, when it does arrive you can connect just about any kit you want to the end of it, and data service is several orders of magnitude faster.

        1. Blitheringeejit
          Holmes

          Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

          Believe whatever your political bias requires you to believe, but back here on planet earth, a quick search reveals...

          http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/11/bbc-watchdog-scalds-bt-openreach-new-home-install-delays.html

          ...and more. Many, many more.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

            That would carry more weight if you also linked comparable stats from before privatisation. I personally heard loads of complaints from friends/family about the BT in the eighties, but very rarely hear any nowadays.

            The NHS meanwhile has gone the other way. Good reports all round in the 80's but now everyone I know who's had inpatient treatment has a bucketful of complaints. My immediate family have directly experienced things you can find in the Mid Staffs report.

            BTW, Mid Staffs happened under the last lot - you know, the ones who are now blathering on about the dangers of privatisation.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

          "data service is several orders of magnitude faster."

          When it works.

          When it stops working? If an end user wants a non-trivial broadband fault fixed, the end user has got to be willing to pay for a BT Openreach SFI technician to come out. Frequently even when the fault is clearly not on the exchange->end user segment (eg when there is an internal BTwholesale issue, as there often is, there is NOTHING an SFI technician can do to fix it).

          The end user has no commercial relationship with BT Openreach but nevertheless the services of the OpenReach technician will likely be charged to the end user at well over £100, or the fault doesn't get progressed, never mind fixed.

          Additionally, there is (afaik) still no universal service obligation for data (other than the 28k8 or so that you get out of a clean voice line).

          Some stuff has got better. Please don't ignore the stuff that has got notably worse.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: WHERE'S MY FTTC?

      Ditto here Cap.....

      The rest of the large village I live in, FTTC enabled. They've benefited from rural broadband investment. Lucky them. There are a few of us who are so close to the exchange, that we have EO lines that don't go into a cabinet. So, we have to wait an unspecified amount of time for them to 'revisit' the exchange. I understand it will involve installing a green cabinet immediately outside the exchange, then hooking us up to that. I was briefly hopeful of FTTP, but apparently not.

      Throughout my 10 ish years of ADSL use, I've smugly been getting nice speed and reliable connections due to being close to the exchange. Karma has now struck.

  2. msknight

    OK - so cost cutting and efficiency ... not gouging customers then...

    What? Me? Bitter?

  3. Lee D Silver badge

    Not surprised.

    I work for a school, we priced up a leased line with them 2-3 years ago. After 18 months, still without a single fibre actually coming into the school, we cancelled the contract (after much warning I might add). Every excuse under the sun. Two guys came and took an hour to drill one hole through a wall (which actually took them two minutes), then left. Another set of guys came and did X and left. Another set did X only when we shouted at the lack of progress, then left. Every time no clue on what was still to happen, what happened next, how long until the next guy turned up.

    They hastily pushed through the blown-fibre carrier pipe when we threatened cancellation, so we had an empty tube in place, but when it came to blowing the fibres it was discovered that, actually, after 18 months of knowing this had to be done, there was no room in the cabinet/exchange for the fibre anyway so we'd have to wait another few months for them to upgrade it all. We cancelled at that point and told them to remove their installed gear or abandon it. They abandoned it.

    Then, yesterday, a year on, a BT guy appeared to "check on the fibre". He was not shocked when I told him how it was cancelled a year previously and the empty tube just left dangling in my office. But, again, more waste of money and time all round.

    If that's how you treat your business leased-line customers, and waste your own money (we'd signed a contract, but had never paid a penny up to that point because we weren't required to, and certainly paid nothing after cancellation either), it's little wonder you're struggling. God knows what the poor fools with BT phone lines are suffering through.

    Ironically, their suggestion was that we went with VDSL (FTTC) instead. We did so as an emergency measure to have some connectivity above ADSL levels, but were told the max we could get was 45Mbps where we were, and the max we actually get is 10-15Mbps. So I'm running a school with hundreds of machines off a standard business line with 10Mbps down and about 4Mbps up.

    Though we can't avoid them, because of their monopoly on the lines etc., we are currently moving as much as we can from them, including trying to get a Virgin leased line in (which should be pretty independent of OpenReach etc.) and then SIP'ing all the phone lines instead.

    BT have always been a shower, ever since they refused to supply ADSL to another school I worked at which was LITERALLY across the road from the exchange. We had so much faffing about, it was unbelievable and whenever the workmen disappeared, we just walked across the road to find them. And even then we ended up with 2 x ADSL2 lines only because they never had VDSL back in that time. So, again, an independent Virgin line was brought in there as well.

    I'm only surprised they are still allowed to profit from being the ONLY people capable of installing these lines in the first place and reselling them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I'm only surprised they are still allowed to profit from being the ONLY people capable of installing these lines in the first place and reselling them."

      I'm a little confused. You say several times that BT have a monopoly or are the only people allowed to install lines, then give two examples of where you've used Virgin. It's not possible for both statements to be true.

      1. Martin Summers Silver badge

        AFAIK Virgin are not available everywhere through their independent network, they sometimes have to use Openreach too. OP was obviously very lucky in both instances.

      2. Lee D Silver badge

        Fair point, but you're not seeing the picture I see.

        The previous Virgin install cost something like £10,000 just to get the Virgin cable near enough to use. That's on top of the leased line fees. We couldn't use any other provider as they all piggy-back on BT and, thus, are not only more expensive than BT but also just... well, they are BT sold in a different box. There's no way to use a ordinary telephone exchange without involving BT, and - as pointed out - BT backhaul is often the only way that Virgin can supply a line either. Thus they have absolutely no incentive to compete, give good custom, nor anything else. We paid because we HAD to get away from BT.

        The other (current) install - a millionaire who lives down the road had basically paid Virgin to run a private line to his house. The cable goes over a kilometre JUST to service his property. God knows what it cost. We only found out that it was there by chance, as it's not listed on Virgin's normal service charts (which all say we can't get their services). We negotiated and they were able to extend it. This is the one where it took BT two years to put in a fibre and they really couldn't care less about us not finishing install because they were convinced that NO competitor was able to service us without us activating the BT line somehow.

        They were wrong but only because THEY didn't know about the one-off connection to a single house on the borders of the property that VM let us piggy-back on. They literally did nothing for two years, then hurriedly put things in when we mentioned a viable competitor and at that point discovered that NONE of the planning for the line had ever really taken place properly. Then we cancelled. We still get bothered by them, and still had to pay them (via other providers) to get a VDSL connection in the meantime.

        You don't have to have EVERY SINGLE cable to be a monopoly, in the same way that Microsoft didn't need to be on EVERY computer to be a monopoly. And BT abuse their position to the detriment of customers, large and small. The entire village (inside the M25, so not really "out in the sticks") serviced by our school is on junky ADSL and you need VDSL to get anywhere near half-decent speeds, which costs extra, and there is basically no viable alternative unless you happen to have a millionaire next door who's already paid to bring fibre all the way down the road from another town to within a decent distance of you.

        Even then, we had to do half the installation (for 1.2km of fibre to get from that guy's house to where we actually needed it), pay the extra installation costs, and wait six months for Virgin to get close. But we could have piggybacked on a BT line, we were stupidly close to getting a BT fibre put in, we had BT phone lines, but it still took two years and ZERO movement to get close to a business-level connection no matter how much we paid BT. They just didn't care because they knew we'd have to use them so any threat of going elsewhere was useless. That was, until they realised that we COULD go elsewhere when suddenly I had guys all over the site drilling holes and pulling cable but - sadly - not checking that the local cabinets/exchange had the capacity to handle it at any point.

        Honestly, even weeks after cancelling the contract we had BT guys turning up "to install your fibre". We refused them entry to the site. I can only hope that the other houses and businesses benefit from our hassles and we can turn the town into a VIrgin-served one by the expense we've gone to to get the connection.

        The next day after our fibre went in, BT OpenReach were digging more cable a few roads away and leafleting the local town. Either we panicked them, or the Virgin backhaul does actually rely on BTOpenreach at some point. Judging by what we were told (and the cable planning maps I saw, which have the Virgin fed from entirely the opposite direction), we think it's the first.

  4. Wardy01

    Virgins view ...

    When I recently had an issue with my virgin "not so" super hub virgin sent out an engineer to swap over the boxes ...

    That's a crazy waste of money.

    However ... I got the opportunity to speak to him about the state of todays broadband networks and one of the things I asked him was "Why aren't virgin available in more places?", the engineer told me ...

    By default when new estates are built BT copper are typically put in, any Virgin lines require long paper trails of approval before they can even consider being laid.

    The process of installing new Virgin Exchanges is effectively on hold until BT get their grubby mitts on the decision, and even then BT get some say in weather Virgin can build an exchange in an area.

    This is such a ridiculous state of affairs that I could only gasp that it would even be true.

    The strange thing is ... I've heard this several times since!

    Why is it that BT get to control the state of the UK networks?

    If there was a fairer way that the likes of Virgin could come in and put up exchanges as BT do "pretty much anywhere" I htink most of the country would be looking at 100mb/s+ already.

    In the town where I live thinkbroadband.com show maps of the speed test results, you can clearly see the edge of the virgin network lies where the new houses start.

    Serious gov/ofcom/anyone ... sort this crap out and give the consumer a fair deal!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Virgins view ...

      "By default when new estates are built BT copper are typically put in, any Virgin lines require long paper trails of approval before they can even consider being laid.

      The process of installing new Virgin Exchanges is effectively on hold until BT get their grubby mitts on the decision, and even then BT get some say in weather Virgin can build an exchange in an area.

      This is such a ridiculous state of affairs that I could only gasp that it would even be true."

      That's just not true. Virgin (and any telco) can lay cable and build exchanges anywhere they like and BT have zero say in it.

      Developers install the basic infrastructure when they build and they tend to cable up new estates with copper. They're not compelled to do that, it just makes things easier rather than have a telco come along and dig up all their nice new roads to lay their cables. My understanding is that the developers then sell the stuff they've installed to a telco who 'adopt' the infrastructure.

      Telcos don't tend to go round willy nilly installing new exchanges and cables is because it's a brilliant way of going bust. It's almost always cheaper to just rent stuff from Openreach than it is to build yourself. Core network can be built competitively, but last mile connections - a recipe for financial disaster.

      1. Steven Jones

        Re: Virgins view ...

        Quite. Is perfectly open to developers to negotiate with any network supplier they so choose. Indeed, some do. Which is why some developers have done deals with fibre suppliers.

        Of course many developers will just follow existing practices, but there's nothing stopping them dealing with VM if they so wish.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its a farce. BT Group should either be a core infrastructure supplier OR and wholesale/retail operation NOT BOTH, the Chinese walls cant hide the fact that the group as a whole abuses its dominant position.

    I have a line ONLY for internet - these days its BDUK funded FTTC, why do I have to pay full line rental for a line I only use/need for data? for years I have paid separately for the ADSL/VDSL equipment at the exchange, I have no use for or need of voice equipment, so why am I forced to pay for it?

    I don't buy the assertion that the cost saving would not be much, given that my line seems to get zero maintenance (explained by a long term dropping issue on a line of moderate length) Bt seem happy to force me to support a falling line rental sector driven by the use of mobile phones.

    I dumped BT as a provider when they hiked the line rental They stole Moto GP from the public and then expected me to pay more for the copper to support the overpay on the rights. When my current EE contract expires my mobile number will be ported if the sale goes ahead. If I had a way to avoid BT copper at all I would, the service is terrible, 14 years of broadband and they still cant explain the problem, and wont do a D side swap as no pairs are available.

    And don't get me started on the Scam called SFI visits, where an ordinary engineer gets limited time to try and track down a problem which SHOULD be covered in your supply contract and then they try to extort over a hundred quid from the customer because the engineer couldn't find the fault.

    Any other business would end up in court being prosecuted. BT group should be broken up.

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