Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Wednesday 19 December 2007, 11:58 AM
Arise Sir Ben
BT's Dutch supremo, Ben Verwaayen, has been awarded an honorary KBE by the Queen, thus joining other non-British recipients such as Steven Spielberg, Bill Gates and George Bush Sr.
"This is a fantastic tribute to everyone who has worked so hard to transform BT into a communication services company with a global reach and a bright future," said Ben. It is? What, the same BT that just recently came bottom in a table of broadband customer satisfaction? I wonder who supplies connectivity to Buck House.
BT chairman Sir (snap!) Mike Rake said Verwaayen's KBE came about because he "has been a powerful advocate for the benefits of free trade and globalisation, and has engaged in a series of critical public policy debates, including his recent chairmanship of the CBI Task Force on Climate Change". Which makes more sense. Especially the first bit.
Wednesday 19 December 2007, 11:35 AM
XP SP3 release candidate, er, released
Season's greetings from Microsoft, in the shape of a release candidate for Windows XP service pack 3. Available to download here, this is the first non-beta version of XP SP3 released to the public.
MS says the update "includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers' experience with the operating system". However, testing of the beta version of XP SP3 and that of Vista SP1 showed SP3 to be pretty darn hot in terms of performance. Then again, that's compared to Vista...
Anyway, over to Redmond for the usual RC proviso:
This pre-release software is provided for testing purposes only. Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission critical systems. Microsoft recommends that you have a backup of your data prior to installing any pre-release software.
Monday 17 December 2007, 10:47 AM
Carphone emails fuel iPhone scandal
Ouch. A few weeks ago, BBC's Watchdog programme outed Carphone Warehouse for misselling iPhone insurance - CPW customers complained that they'd been told they had to get store insurance with an iPhone because, if they lost their Jesusphone with no CPW insurance, they'd have to buy not only a new handset but a new contract. That'll be around £900 thank you very much.
Of course, this is rubbish. Pay for the new handset, yes, but a new contract? Who comes up with this stuff? Oh, wait... Carphone Warehouse management, according to the Mobile website, which has a copy of an internal email sent to store staff. From the email:
This will probably be the easiest Lifeline [CPW insurance] sale you can make - there are two major points we need to make all our customers aware of If you lose it or its water damaged - you cannot replace it without our insurance as the phone cannot be bought sim free. Therefore to replace the phone it will cost $900 [sic] (270 for a new phone and 18 x $35 [sic] line rental).
Allllrighty then! Mobile also has this statement from CPW CEO Andrew Harrison, whose staff have been understandably far from gruntled at being accused of dishonesty by irate customers:
"I sent the guys in store an email, telling them I didn’t blame any of them [cheers, mate!]. The issue arose out of the fact we don’t sell a sim free version [no-one does, outside of France] and that the box says you need a new 18 month contract. Somewhere along the line - and its difficult to ascertain where - there was confusion over this. I’m upset that they were called liars, they are not; there was just genuine confusion. We contained it from a customer point of view [eh?] and have reiterated all the facts."
Sterling work!
Wednesday 12 December 2007, 10:02 AM
Skype planning multiparty videocalls etc
I popped over to Skype's West End offices yesterday to interview Stefan Oberg - VP Telecoms - about a range of issues, most importantly the 0207 debacle and the possibility of Skype opening up its protocols to rival networks at some point in the future.
But one point that didn't make it into the final story (focus, David, focus!) was the hint that Skype may finally be working on conference videocalls - it currently does conference calls and videocalls, but the two concepts haven't quite crossed paths yet.
Speaking to Sten Tamkivi, Skype's Estonia-based eCommerce chief, by Skype videocall (embarrassingly patchy picture quality, since you ask), I learned that the prayers of many of you (I'm looking at you, Jamie) may be answered sometime soon. "Launching high quality video was high on our agenda," said Tamkivi. "Multiparty video is now going to be one of [our priorities]."
The other nugget that rose to the surface was the forthcoming enhancement of Skype Prime, which is soon going to enjoy better integration with Skype's directories service. It seems that 80,000 people have signed up as service providers for the scheme, but as for user numbers... well, they're not talking about that, really. Maybe because they've only been letting users in during the last month, whereas the service providers have been hanging around since March. I wonder how many of them will still be interested.
Monday 10 December 2007, 4:29 PM
Ofcom: Well done BT, but...
According to Ofcom's latest annual report on BT Openreach, the split-off bit of the former incumbent is running according to plan. So well done.
However, the regulator seems to think that Openreach still needs incentives to improve its products and repair things in a timely manner. Here are the suggestions for Openreach:
* Pay out compensation proactively without any need for Openreach customers to make a claim;
* Pay out every time service or quality falls below the contractual threshold instead of paying out against performance stated as an average over time;
* Continue to pay compensation each time problems persist with no upper limit to the amount which must be paid; and
* Pay additional levels of compensation for failure to activate ‘live’ lines which is double the amount that it presently pays.
This is all in the consultation stage right now til the end of January, but will no doubt add to the festive cheer round BT's way until then.
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