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Thats fine, I think you are one of those annoying idiots who assume that a company cant ever do anything right and feels the need to insult anyone who doesnt agree with them or assume that the world is a rip off.  

I have freely agreed that some of the things put forward by BT have been a rip off, Im not stupid enough to think otherwise. But I joined this forum as I assumed that it would have people on it who were concerned with getting a good deal and debating the pros and cons of certain providers (including BT), hell the guy who asked me to join said specificly that he wanted the view of a BT worker in here.

maybe, just maybe you should get your head out of your backside and learn to realise that the economics of the world are NOT based around what little you think you know.


But I thank you for your warm welcome to the forum and I hope that the little information I did debate with was instructive to some of you before idiot man here decided he would be the be all and end all of knowledge.

Oh, and Wholesale and Retail are seperate in that Retail do NOT get any benefits from being part of the BT group. I work from inside the company, I see how the interaction between them goes. I hate the job and am happy to slate them until the cows come home, but at least I can do so without making assumptions that fit only my worldview.

Oh, and if you had bothered to find out anything about me you would find I am a highly intelligent person who is able to discuss a wide range of subjects with ease. I am not easily taken in by anything or anyone. Hell how many of these annoying saps can discuss Commedia Dell Arte with an expert? Or debate the reasons and morals of Hitler and his actions (not that either of those are any use on this forum mind) for example?

Edited fopr my awful spelling. Damn dyslexia.

Firstly, darkstar, I would like to apologise for the comments about you by NonGeographicalMan.

darkstar wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2006 at 8:45am:

But the price BT Retail pays is the one BT Wholesale sets. Thus, if BT Wholesale makes a profit and BT Retail does not, then BT as a whole is still profitting. Indeed, its competitors like TalkTalk are put into the same boat as BT Retail, i.e. they pay the same amount for their service and have to compete. So perhaps it's in BT's interest for the profit to be in BT Wholesale rather than BT Retail. The thing is though, putting whether they are making a loss or a profit aside for a moment, these price increases must surely make BT more profitable at the direct expense of Joe Public.

Getting back to the making a loss thing; the other side of the coin is that companies charge far more than it actually costs them for a service. For example, a pair of Nike trainers that retail at £80 don't cost anywhere near that to manufacture. It's the name that's being paid for.

So when services like the call return element of 1471 or caller display are charged at an exorbitant amount, I feel that we are being held to ransom by greedy companies just out for profit.

The competition, we have been told, will reduce prices. But I do not believe that this is what is happening one bit. Granted, inflation is always a factor, but that does not excuse the introduction of charging for elements that were previously free. They also seem to have plenty of money to throw at marketing people to create illusions that prices are being simplified and that they are making such changes after consulting the customer.

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But in BT's effort to "simplify" packages, you can tell them that until the cows come home! The elderly, especially, do not understand that certain calls are not charged according to their length. Trying to explain that you have to redial after an hour means little to my Grandma. Inflating the pence per minute after 1 hour by 300% is an underhand way of profiting after establishing this particular part of the tariff.

Another such example is BT Together, which originally charged all calls on a per minute basis. For the equivalent of £1.80 per month over BT Standard, you could have BT Together rates. Then evening and weekend geographical calls were made 6p for upto 1 hour. So short calls (lasting less than 2 minutes) were actually cheaper in the daytime! Now it became clear as to why BT Answer 1571 and other answering services could be provided for 'free'. With the new BT Together, the inclusive call time was quietly dropped. The marketing people obviously forgot to make a song and dance about the removal of £2.40 worth of inclusive call time that was present in the old BT Together.

I felt that this was a very underhand way of slipping in a price increase for those who used the phone less. And by keeping the name of the package, people would have felt comfortable with it; that prices were being simplified/reduced, when that wasn't necessarily the case. As competition has taken hold, this has set the tone for the types of illusions created by the whole industry.

In a similar fashion, it meant that the terms "peak" and "off-peak" could not be used, as a "peak rate" is, by definition, higher than an "off-peak" rate. Again, how many people have cottoned on to this?

bbb_uk wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2006 at 9:12am:


Anyway, I wanted to answer these points:

1) I am including the things that Bt (and any OLO) would have to take into account such as paying for its electricity, building ground rent, wages on staff, ect ect ect. Its all taken into account and for the basic line (if you use a CPS for example) this just doesnt cover those costs.

3) again I meant staff pay rises, they go up quicker than the BT prices. You can belive THAT (we have a pretty good union).

7) Its not entirely automated, and many of these situations cost BT a fair wack to sort out as people ring up to sort out payment plans for late payers ect.


bbb_uk, no problem and thanks. I really shouldnt ahve responded, but Ive been a bad tempered SOB as of late.