Ugh! must ... scrub... minds eye... with... brillo pad...

oooerrr missus!

@Chris

This is taken from the Icstis Oral Hearing concerning the GMTV phone-in 'scandal'.

Did BT know they were taking their customers for a 'RIDE'.

19. A further issue investigated by ICSTIS was the use of overflow platforms. The servers operated by Opera could deal with some 1,200 simultaneous callers, but at busy times as may as 10,000 viewers would call at once. The excess would be transferred to other handlers. In the later stages of the Competition, the entire overflow was handled on the RIDE platform operated by BT. No finalists were ever selected from the BT platform, yet the callers would be charged as usual. Entrants whose calls were transferred to the RIDE platform were therefore always disenfranchised.

20. A further allegation raised by a Mail on Sunday article of 29 April 2007 and investigated by ICSTIS was that for a period during February 2007 there were technical difficulties with the telephone lines, and accordingly all finalists were selected from SMS entries. It was accepted by Opera that from 8 February to 20 February 2007 all callers to the 090 number were transferred over to the BT RIDE overflow platform, which meant that the callers would still be charged but that they had no chance of winning. For the eight competition days in question only those entering by other means were selected as finalists. Viewers were not informed at any time during this period that those entering by telephone could not win.

Dated this 24th day of September 2007

Im not surprised BT are losing money on a scale like Societe Generale(!)

All the 5 mobile operators now use direct interconnects between each other for cross network calls, so BT lost that revenue stream (massive)

All the 5 mobile operators now use their own Private Fibre Networks or 'bulk lease' tons of capacity from various SDH providers so BT lost that revenue Stream.

Most mobile operators have started using microwave radio (via dishes) as you can now get STM-1 (155Mbit) over point-to-point links. This equipment is a one off asset cost, plus licence, so BT lost that annual revenue Stream too (Backhaul)

All the mobile operators have found deals from other providers to carry mobile egress traffic to Local, National and International calls for free or virtually fractions of what BT charge so BT lost out on that revenue stream too.

It is possible to use GSH.DSL over multiple copper pairs so you can pay 10% of what a genuine leased line costs (albeit without the SLA) But nevertheless its cheap for a 2Mb/4Mb LL!

All the Local Loop Unbundling means they lose out on these revenue streams

Nobody uses payphones because they are more expensive than mobiles now.

What is now remaining is the first ISP with the true balls to do naked-DSL (which is ADSL/SDSL over the traditional method, only exception is no Phone Service provided to keep costs utterly low... Its just a matter of time now...

My heart bleeds for BT, all their self inflicted injuries all for being mega expensive (and thats on a wholesale level) Little wonder they have financial woes!

If other Telcos had more infrastructure coverage then BT would be in severe difficulties by now...