OT: BT and Carphonewarehouse

Grazie wrote on 7/18/2006, 11:54 PM
OK, this is me having a rant. Watch out!

For nearly 2 years now I have been conscious of the following.

British Telecom charges for Broadband AND the monthly services charges for the "use" of the copper wires coming to my home. This I find a complete wind-up. I've contacted BT on a number of occasions and have "discussed" the option of a discount as there are competitors out there and I feel a fool for staying with BT. 2 years ago all I got was deaf ears. Now! I've been successful in getting my points recognised and in a pecuniary way too!


. .and guess what folks? A UK mobile phone distributor - Car Phone Warehouse is going to provide FREE BB as long as you buy there mobiles. Now THAT is consumer power and creative business acumen on behalf of CPW.

BT? Remove your digit NOW and get creative too. You can't rest on your 100+ years monopoly to carry you through this one. Oh yeah, and then there is SKYPE, just to mention some mega million downloads - GLOBALLY! - and nearly 5 million users on line at the moment. Yes it uses BB, but I do feel there is far more convergence of digital services and lowering of prices, than we can even image at the moment. Maybe not just BB for free? Maybe ALL comms charges for free. Think about that one for a second.

. .and that was why I was searching - about a month ago? - for a piece of software that would register my BB usage. Now I know this AND I know just where BT makes there 2gb>6gb>20gb usage cutoffs I have further material to lay in front of the Grazie-beleaguered BT Customer Desk!

Oh yeah - in % terms of billing? The copper wire costs around 33% of the charges, the remainder is my BB usage contract. Nice BT earner. And where do the usage cutoffs appear? Just below my monthly usage. So, if I were on a lower tariff, and "persistently" strayed above above 2gb, I would be advised to go for the more expensive package. And this is a difference of 15-20%!!! Oh yeah, at the time of asking they - BT - had no way of accurately informing me of my personal usage. Ironically they COULD/CAN advise me to go to a higher package. Strange that? NOT! Oh pleeeease!

Rant over . ..

Comments

vicmilt wrote on 7/19/2006, 3:56 AM
In "American" terms...
for those of you unaware of what Mr. Grazie is ranting about (and providentially, I was part of that group until yesterday)...
well, we all know how much international telephone calling costs, the "usual" way - up to a buck or more a minute.

Now, however, the convergence of telephony and internet has allowed us to call anywhere for pennies.

My son just went to Europe to shoot and edit rock concerts (www.ProfessionalRockstars.com) and we discovered a service called Skype (www.skype.com). It's software that allows you to use your computer as a phone and it only costs $.02 a minute. Mom and girlfriend are both happy.

Tha's a wunnaful thing.

v
Grazie wrote on 7/19/2006, 4:52 AM

The other "thang" for others to note is that between SKYPE users . .er .. how do I put this? IT IS FREE!! The quality is stupendous. Those Vegas users who are in touch through SKYPE get to contact each other and it is like having people IN your room. It is that clear.

mbryant wrote on 7/19/2006, 6:18 AM
Grazie,

Not to defend BT, but..

There are 3 parts to your home phone service:

1. The “line rental” for the cables coming into your house
2. The voice call charges
3. Broadband charges

Sounds like you have all 3 with BT.

Now in the UK everyone has a choice for items 2 and 3, and the majority also have a choice for item 1. I.e. you can avoid BT altogether.

The Carphone Warehouse offer is you buy a package from them which consists of 1, 2, and 3, for one price (which is the same as they used to charge for 1 and 2, hence the “free” BB).

Pricewise it is a good deal. But be aware: The BB service is not good (poor speeds, not reliable).. and to get this you have to commit to a 18 month contract! I never used CW broadband but know people who do. I did use CW for item 1 (line rental), but I changed back to BT. Why? We wanted to use the voice mail feature, which we used for years with BT. With CW, we had messages but no alert, delays in messages getting to us, etc. I still use them for calls though. And I use Eclipse as my broadband ISP.

You need to consider quality as well as price and pick what is best for you.

Regardless, I agree IP based services sich as SKYPE will take greater and greater share.

Mark
farss wrote on 7/19/2006, 6:58 AM
Very good points there. We've tried a pretty big range of service providers down here and it's very easy to get trapped by nor understanding the complexities of things like provisioning. It's one thing to have a fast connection and huge download limits for peanuts but if the backbone that you're connected to gets congested it's all for nought.
Grazie wrote on 7/19/2006, 9:18 AM
Lads, lads, lads. I do understand the 3 points. I do know how my bill is constructed. And I could have gone with others for the various parts. But still the GB limits are set just below what I use. I also understand the contract agreements. BT has them too. My point is this: Consumer pressure created by alternatives ( CPW, AOL, Tiscali, NTL . . ) and the falling away of outdated monopolies will very soon re-draw the BT landscape.

Watch the cyber-space for what BT will be able to supply soon. Shear coincidence on my part that I brought this up today though.

Bob, we too have a wealth of shaky and unstable suppliers. I'm seriously looking forward to what BT will now be ABLE to supply. It is going to get very interesting, very quickly. Oh yes Bob, I was able to "negotiate" a reduction at my existing/present download limit and speed. Maybe it is my winning smile and total charm that beguiles BT in making me the offer? Can't be my salient business case I made to them? What do you think Bob? Charm or business case?
farss wrote on 7/19/2006, 9:32 AM
The charm matey, the charm.

Either way, BT should get points for negotiating.

Agree, the landscape is rapidly changing although it's taken a long time. The cost of long haul data links is now minute, it's now the last few miles that cost the most and this is where it gets difficult for the telcos.

There's enough bandwidth between say here and the UK for each and every citizen to be streaming video to the other country and talking about it on the phone at the same time.

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 7/19/2006, 9:44 AM
"Either way, BT should get points for negotiating."

Nope, not having that Bob!

'Cos BT now have a department up and running called "Customer Retention" section. Luv it!! They have realised that they HAVE to do something. Now, knowing this, and why it is there, we can "discuss" like growed-up adults the options available to me. Ah, sweet eh?
Coursedesign wrote on 7/19/2006, 9:48 AM
Skype is indeed wonderful, and the sound quality is outstanding.

My brother was in Bombay on business, needed to make a lot of international phone calls but didn't care to pay five bucks per minute on his hotel room phone.

So he bought a data-enabled cell phone locally for $130, with a prepaid card that gave him 144 kbps Internet access for about 2 cents per minute.

He hooked this up to his laptop, and peer-networked two colleagues' laptops via Wi-Fi, all in his hotel room.

Two of them were then making international calls, while the third guy was chatting via Skype, with reliable file transfer. The outbound calls cost 2 cents per minute to regular phones, or nothing to Skype users.

And all of this calling and chatting for 2 cents per minute altogether...

On his long Lufthansa flight back, my brother paid $29.95 for unlimited Wi-Fi internet access to his laptop, so he called me again via Skype for free, with perfect sound quality (better than landline).

Vonage now has unlimited free calling from the U.S. to the UK, France and a few other countries in Europe (on their unlimited plans), but their sound quality is not as good as Skype. It has gotten better though and is very useable today.