Mild anti-phone-company rant

["Brown, R Ken" <brownrk1@texaco.com>]

Why worry about mere governments when the phone company can ru(i)n your
life? 

BT AKA  British Telecom were reported on the BBC radio over the weekend
to be using their customer's account records to poach business from
Internet service providers.  Sales staff searched for customers who
frequently dialled known ISP numbers. They then tried to sell them BT's
Internet service (imaginitively branded as "BT Internet") 

A bit of a marketing advantage that, knowing exactly who your mark
phoned, when and for how long.  What's next? Maybe BT Pizza will try
contacting heavy users of Domino. Or BT Hot and Horny will send
brochures in plain covers to subscribers who phone certain numbers
apparently in Grenada or Chile  (Not that I would ever call such numbers
but a friend of mine was surprised to find so many Manchester accents in
Latin America...)

UK government's response to all that is at
http://www.coi.gov.uk/coi/depts/GOT/GOT.html  - which will also tell you
about the way BT overcharges independent  payphone operators and rakes
off money whenever you call a mobile phone. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid%5F181000/181800.stm says how
Kent police are doing a deal with BT so that the phone company will
withdraw service from people who make too many frivolous 999 calls
(emergency number - like the US 911 - but a lot easier to key in when
your room is  full of smoke). So if the police don't like you they can
ask BT to cut off your phone and they just will?

And if you think I've got it in for BT at least they seem to be  more
competent than their main rivals in the UK market,  inCapable and
Witless (did I spell that right?) for whom I spent a day and a half
waiting at home last week, instead of at work. On Thursday  I was there
for hours for one man to come in, stick something into a wall port, see
that it lit up (I could have told him that the connection to the switch
worked) and give me a piece of paper to sign, telling me that they had
connected my phone to the WRONG NUMBER  which, after I had called them
to ask for my own phone number back got disconnected entirely.  On
Friday they didn't turn up at all. Totally wasted day.  And I currently
have neither phone nor cable TV services, and haven't had for THREE
WEEKS. And they had the temerity to send me a bill - even if it was only
for 4.45.

I think I should charge them for my wasted time. Maybe I should ask for
consultancy rates.  But I suppose if I demanded more than a year's phone
bill off them they'd soon decide they dindn't have to supply me with
service at all.  Nuts.

There must be a cheap way to get online without dealing with phone
companies. They seem to combine the entrepreneurial spirit of the civil
service with the humility of the banks and the dedication to customer
choice of Microsoft and IBM.

This mail is entirely my own private opinion and nothing at all to do
with my employers who probably wouldn't approve of it in the unlikely
event that they ever noticed it.  Despite the fact that I am using their
Internet connection to send it.  Of course I could always have sent it
from home via my ISP. Or I could have  IF I HAD A BLOODY PHONE LINE THAT
BLOODY WELL WORKED.

Ken Brown