Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I was thinking the same thing how can COBI suddenly pull out of work that they are contracted to do, seems a bit absurb.

Alas if their profit margin is 50% then that is some profit, but not surprising considering the measures NTL take to reach this profit level, but any company that is struggling to run on a 50% profit margin needs a shake up at the top.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Ntl switch sites & hub sites have diesel engines but there have been instances where they didn't start on mains fail. (usually due to lack of regular routine maintenance, the power staff are stretched to the limit). BT have also had engines that don't start/catch fire for the same reasons I expect!
If power fails to an ntl cabinet they usually bring in a petrol genny which keeps the neighbours awake all night, until someone decides to pinch it. The batteries wouldn't last more than a couple of hours assuming they were in good nick anyway.
Maintenance & engineers are dirty words to corporate bean counters. We don't install or sell anything so are viewed as non-productive. Happens in most companies unfortunately. Nothing lasts forever but doesn't last at all without maintenance. :erm:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I can agree with injuneer here, the condition of the batteries at cabints these days are an unknown quantity. ntl employed small teams of technicains to carry out preventative maintenace at cabinets after it was noted that these cabinets were not being looked after and batteries were failing. These guys were checking battery capacity, locks, hinges and generally sort out any maintenance issues, these positions were made redundant a few years ago as another cost saving exersize.

The ups/battery back up for nodal cabinets was also shelved about 4 years ago, before the project got off the ground, but not before they had an agreement with suppliers to supply x amount a month.

The standby generator maintenance in my old region was taken over by the broadcast guys, generators had failed to start due to lack of maintenance. Many of ntl's switch sites were built with battery back-up an ups to cope with the equipment put in the sites early on, as they have added extra equipment for new services and customers the ups/batteries and indeed air conditioning have not been upgraded in the cost saving excersizes.

Many of the later built hubsites do not have standby generators, so if a complete hubsite loses power the batteries will only last an hour os so at most. In this situation it could mean tens of thousands of customers lose broadband and TV service all for the sake of some cost saving 4-5 years ago.

Money was tight long before chapter 11 for things like generators, air conditioning and battery back-up, out of 10 hubsites fed off the Cardiff Headend, three of them have no standby generators!
The air conditioning situation means that some large site could lose one air conditioning unit and the entire site cooks, there was wiring and floor allocation from day one for additional units as equipment racks were increased, but they saved cost by not upgrading, one unit failing now can be the straw that breaks the camels back.

Every new piece of equipment that they put in a hubsite or headend, such as all this lovely new VOD equipment is adding to the potential problem.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I know some of the power guys that were transferred to Broadcast recently. They cover a vast geographical area now and all management do is question the amount of overtime they book, most of which is for emergency call out. Do they think engineers actually enjoy being called out in the middle of the night to some god forsaken place for christ's sake? They do it because they want to maintain a good service for customers, nobody I know is on the "fiddle", they only book the actual time they are out. I've heard that the new owners of broadcast (Mcquarie) are a better employer so hopefully they will be treated with more respect than they are now.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I guess they are probably offloading people onto broadcast to save on redundancies, just like cable and wireless did when they sold part off to ntl. I heard managers they didn't want were being transferred before that sale.

I guess the broadcast guys could be the lucky ones, many I met were not happy when CableTel bought ntl. They were fortunate to be of large enough size and have a union to stop CableTel/ntl walking all over them.

I guess ntl home/networks will have to employ people to look after the generators and power, or possibly contract it out. then again they may just take a chance as they have done in the past.

They took a chance with some of the network management servers by saving money and not bothering with a maintenance contract, they found out the hard way when they started to fail and it took almost a week each time to get someone from sun out to look at them! :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Isnt this going to cost NTL more in the long run though? if peoples service ends up going off and its not fixed for awhile they will start demanding some form of compensation and if its thousands of people....then thats going to rack up.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I think Broadcast or National Transcommunications Ltd as they are now to be called in the interim (Funny, don't those initials spell NTL?) are contracted to do maintenance for Ntl for 2 years as part of the sale agreement. :erm:
__________________

Ahh, now you are thinking like a rational person, unfortunately that doesn't seem to happen in the world of large corporations. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

National Transcommunication LTD is what they were called when CableTel bought them in the late 90's.

The whole thing kicked off when Ocom Communications came over here in the early-mid 90's looking to start up a Mobile telephone network, they had missed the boat but decided these new cable franchise licences looked like a good bet. They formed a company called International CableTel, they actually had a holding company and lots of regional CableTel companies, after a few years they bought NTL (note capitols) National Transcommunications LTD. The NTL company was the old Home office, IBA etc that was privatised by Maggie in the 80's, around 84-85 as far as I remember.

They used NTL on the company acrs and vans but later changed the NTL for home/residential to ntl, they probably paid a consultant a few hundred thousand to come up with that one, then the rest is history. I remember a thread running on another site where an ntl employee reckoned ntl didn't stand for anything! We all know different though.

I guess the NTL ie: National Transcommunications LTD is still a limited company operating under the ntl umberella, and thats how they will sell it off. With the old cable franchises, the franchise was not transferrable to another company, and thats why they were cautious and had them all as seperate limited companies operating under a holding company.

Sorry if I have bored anyone. ;)

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Speaking to someone in another cable company about this:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I can tell thats not ntl. ;)

I think the big problem for network maintenance, is the perceived impression by customer service management types, that an engineer without a list of ten service calls is sat on his backside drinking coffee. Some ntl areas have very bad return path problems, I was told by someone on this site that the practice of fitting an attenuator to the return path monitoring system, gives the NMC the impression that the noise floor is lower than it actually is!

I knew that was going on over two years ago in some poor ntl regions, engineering is not an ntl strong point. The managers in charge of engineering functions unfortunately don't seem to have any clout, they will only be able to show stats (the only thing guys at the top understand) when things go terribly wrong. I think then it will be too late, because engineers will of been made redundant or left of their own free will, and the skills will be lost.
Right now I think the management have their head buried deeper in the sand than ever, however the money problems wouldn't allow them to do anything if they realised whats going on.

We used to run routines in South Wales for noise floor measurements off our own backs, this stopped after the BNMC was created, the Broadband NMC was to be the dogs danglies in looking after the state of the network. I now understand however that due to company politics and empire building the BNMC have no teeth, they are unable to raise tickets to get problems sorted and the engineers are only rolled on faults that customers are complaining about. The BNMC are/should be capable of spotting potential service affecting problems and get them nipped in the bud before customers are affected, this is not happening, and it's rumoured that the BNMC will close because they are not providing a usefull function!

They are not providing a usefull function because lack of money and company politics are stopping them. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

The BNMC's main mission appears to be stats collection, they are not even 24x7. They don't have anywhere near enough man power to even hope to manage the RF network.
The FMS that is 24x7 has a few issues that I won't go into too much.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

But if an engine failed to start in a BT exchange that would have an effect on customer service, they would get an engineer there to fix it.

They also do regular engine runs to check the engines r working OK, these r done remotely and with maintenance engineers visiting the exchange.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

One would hope so but I have friends who still work in BT who can tell you that the bean counter mentality also prevails there!! I would expect BT's battery strings are in better conditition than some of ntl's so would be able to handle the load until an engineer could attend to start the engine.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I agree but it doesn't seem to be to the same degree as the NTL cutbacks judging by what I've read on here. One thing is that loads of overtime is paid out to cope with faults and the ADSL volumes.

There's also the point that BT's backup batteries r stored in less extreme conditions being in an exchange building than in a street cabinet. They've also been taking on extra power engineers in some parts of the country lately to cope with the amount of maintenance work they have.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I was talking about the batteries on the switch sites not the ones in the cabinets !! Some of them have been in for about 10 years now and are well past their sell by date !!

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

yes they are getting old now, I guess most switch sites/headends are drawing about 1000 amps of current from batteries for the telco gear these days. (judging by the last I remember from Cardiff switch as an example) It doesn't take a genuis to realise that the batteries are only desgined to keep things going for a very short time until the generator kicks in. I think another big difference between ntl and BT is the number of switch sites they have, ntl tended to put all the eggs in one big basket. Cardiff had one switch site, but I seem to remember being told BT had about six in the area. In Cardiff ntl also put all the concentrators in the Switch/headend and not out in the hubsites like most other areas, this of course is extra load for the batteries/ups when a power outage occurs.

ntl's network is generally not as resilint as BT's, and ntl came unstuck a few times in south wales with the few large business customer contracts they won. I know they lost one contract with a big customer due to switch congestion and another due to a fibre being cut, and they had lied to the customer telling them there was a diverse fibre feeding the area just to get the sale!

I know there was some clear-up civils work to complete some rings, so thats probably not the case now. Still though east and west fibres running in the same hubsite trays or the same ducts is not a very good idea. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I think only Cabletel areas had remote subscriber concentrators at hubsites as far as I know. Nynex, Videotron & Bell Cable never adopted this method believing it was unneccesary with high capacity fibres.
Of course you have to remember that BT still has the majority of fixed line customers. Their exchange capacities are similar as they use the same types in a lot of cases. Ntl have about 100 switches, BT probably 10 times that. :)

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I'm sure BT had about 700 switch sites when I worked for them, but that is a long while ago now, so it may be wrong.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Every BT exchange has Switch equipment in it, so wouldn't they all be classed as switch sites?

According to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/ there are 5591 exchanges.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I think South Wales was probably the only area with concentrators all located in the headend/switch, I visited a few hubs in other cabletel areas and the concs were in the hubs. I think this was a regional thing decided by the network operations manager from day one. I think the planning capacity people then decided they didn't need as much fibre around the hub ring, there was talk of moving the concentrators out to the hubs many years ago, but the amount of fibres as well as cost at a time when money was short made it a no go.

Hindsight a wonderful thing :D

PS: I think the original decision was to site all the equipment at one location, so one switch tech could look after it and never have to leave the site. That is however a redundant plan as there are now more switch sites than techs, I think they are losing another tech in South Wales now taking them down to three switch techs for the whole of South Wales.
(I can not guarantee my figures for 3 switch techs, but think it's the case)

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I'm not sure how they come up with that figure. There certainly aren't anything like that many physical exchange locations as far as know. I would guess that many of those 'exchanges' will just be local concentrators off the main switch processor(s). You could say Nottingham "Bowman", for example, counts as several exchanges.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Some switch sites have more than one switch in them, I worked in a BT site that had 13 floors and there was a switch on every one and a Cable & wireless site in London that had 9 switches. Admittedly some were trunk exchanges. On the subject of staffing, when I worked for BT (14 years ago) there was never a permanent swich engineer on any particular site, I used to cover 3 sites on my patch. (I'm talking about digital switches, not the old analogue ones) To be honest the voice switches are pretty reliable and don't require permanent attendance. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

wtf, no upgrades ???? but they have promised 2mb/3mb by first quarter of 2005.....

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

the 3mbit isnt cancelled just the upgrades like resegmentation etc.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Is that official, if so do I understand correctly then, they are upgrading the bandwidth available to customers but not upgrading the hubsite where a reseg is required to compensate for this increase.

If that's true, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, just looks like they have made a knee jerk reaction to other providers deals, and are about to cause bandwidth problems at the ubr when individual ports become oversubscribed!

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

What use is the 3mb without the resegmentation. Also the charge for £25 to have the upgrade is this just a bonus for teh shareholders and managment now.

Telewest has UPS in every cab has backup and seems to have their network running smooth. How long before NTLs bad apples pulls Telewest down to NTLs level. If I was a shareholder of both companies I would be wanting the Telewest managment to run the merged company they have shown a better record of making the company run smooth with quick response to faults and faster upgrades. The company is run more efficiently but it doesn't have jobs for the boys like NTL.. Is it worth paying £25 to upgrade to a network that is going to be oversubscribed and not resegmented.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Hi To All,

This is a personel thought

If Ntl are going to merge they should SACK ALL NTL MANAGERS and get Telewest to run it.
Reason behind this is I used to be a ntl tec and I have also listen to other ntl tecs on this board and guess what ntl have treated us very badly and I feel very sorry for the tecs and the customers who are suffering due to lack of understanding ie. 5 Days without any Tv or 5 days without a phone .
Surely to God this is not the way to carry on but hey the so called mangement they say "OH WELL THEY CAN GO TO BT OR TO SKY" is this the answer.
Also I feel sorry for the people who are left to face the customers who are now being told "tuff luck if your cable goes dead on a Friday cant send anybody we have NO MONEY pls ring back on Monday if you can get us".....

Sorry for the rant but it just gets me when they start to say sorry no money



Homer

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Telewest running it would be the best bet for customers and employees, unfortunately i just cant see that happening. I have heard managers are already empire building ready for the merger, telewest are a professional company when it comes to engineering their networks compared to ntl.

I expect Telewest will be dragged down to ntl's level, cost saving is the order of the day for both companies, so much of ntl's cost saving is sure to be implemented in Telewest. I know Telewest have gone through tough times, but thats nothing compared to what they will experience when they mix with ntl.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Hi,

Yes it would be true only if they do merge they should get rid of all ntl managers and only then it might stand a chance.....

Homer

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

That's not true I'm afraid not every cabinet has UPS.

Network is running pretty smoothly as a whole though.

Someone said it to me a while ago, Telewest have always been engineering focussed whereas ntl are and have been focussed towards financial gain.

Perversely Telewest outperform ntl financially.... go figure. Possibly speculation means accumulation?

I would fully expect the merger to go the same way as the Cable and Wireless takeover with loads of empire building, jobs for the old boys, regardless of the most efficient way to do it it'll be those managers who can play the politics game best that'll get their way. Probably mean that ntl will win this one, their managers have far more practice, one wonders if more time looking after customer interests and less time guarding their little patch and looking after their friends would have made this a bit different. :(

EDIT: Not to say all managers are like this in the company! There are some that are focussed more towards the customer than covering their own @rse.

Anyone know who ntl's Chief Technical Officer is, if there is one? I would very much expect to see one in a company of this size.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

mergers funded by venture capital are never good for infrastructure, maintainance is seen as an un-necessary cost .....

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Interesting times ahead then, any ntl/Telewest merger will be funded almost exclusively on venture capitalists who bought bonds in expectation of taking control of the company. As I stated elsewhere at some point said VCs are going to want to cash in so I imagine the two will merge and be made more 'efficient' and cash generating then sold to highest bidder.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Here's my two cents on this...

I used to work in Telewest, under Networks in a department called the NTC. It was a mess.
The idea of the department was to take in Telco provisioning from the different regions (it was done by Cable London, Birmingham Cable etc in the past) and merge it into one central office. The subtext was this was a huge cost cutting exercise, moving a huge number of jobs to a small number of people.

I was there from day 1. It was a disaster. They made a lot of the people redundant who had been doing the job for the last however many years, and gave all the systems to us. What they failed to organise, however, was proper training. Or system logins. Can you imagine trying to use Lucent DACS to connect phone line pairs without any idea what youââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢re doing?

I gave it 18 months, and then left. It really, serious was shocking. Had a serious problem? Customer cut off for 2 weeks and nobody knows how to activate the line? Well donââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t worry †“ there werenââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t any managers to pass it onto as they were all people managers bought in from other centres.

The project was declared a success by the spearhead to upper management. It wasnâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t. As I left Telewest, I highlighted the complete cock ups, after two years of them. The spearhead has now departed company from Telewest.

Howard Watson, the MD in charge of networks, is a sound guy. He has his head screwed on, and Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m sure would do an excellent job in terms of maintenance of the physical cable network. However, one thing Telewest excels at is †œProjectsÃÂà ‚¢ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚¬Ã‚ƚÂÂ�. Changing things internally with little thought of the impact. †œJobs for the boysââ‚ ¬Ã‚ÂÂÂ� is a common phrase in Telewest at ground level. Telewest needs to learn to control and manage internal projects better.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

The company I work for is the result of mergers & aquisitions, funded by VC's, the worst thing about it is constantly having to achieve targets that are externally imposed, rather than being more realistically assessed from within.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

You'd be suprised what "critical" / "national" information is carried on the ntl network.

18months ago ntl won a contract for the US Dept of Defence.


Broadcast is reverting to its original name of National Transcommunications Ltd, or "NATRANS" for short.

ntl will continue to be called ntl.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I think thats a very good point, taking into account the considerable skills that telewest have in networks. Iit will be very good for NTL getting the people with the network skills they require from excellence of Telewest

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

It's subjective as to what you call critical. US Dept of Defence? Not critical to me.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

It will be when they stealth bomb your street.

Resegs not happening? Doubt it, I found a whole bunch of new UBRs out on the network this morning - if that isn't investing in capacity for the new speeds I'm a Dutchman. Which I'm not.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Something here I can totally agree with you on, empire building and jobs for the boys has been a big downfall for ntl. I think the empire building was the final straw for me during the planning for growth fiasco, I could see managers kissing the backsides of managers further up the ladder and it was obvious who were getting what post. After I left they created a couple of jobs for two callcentre supervisors, they made them Network Operation Managers. They were useless and stayed in those posts until a more suitable position was created for them with installs.
The ones that get on in ntl are the ones constantly looking over their shoulders and out manouvering everyone else, instead of getting on with what they are paid to do.
It's sickening how many times the good ones end up on 30 days notice and just manage to survive another 6 or 12 months, Ignition will probably know this is going on constantly for some managers, I now one who has been on the 30 day list about five times now, he's a good guy but how can he be expected to have any interest now other than surviving! Many people in ntl are now waiting for the next pay cheque as a bonus, and some are more than happy to be made redundant.

Chief Technical officer?

No senior technical person has ever had any teeth in ntl, the company I worked in before ntl and my present company are very engineering focused. A Chief Engineer is a very powerfull person in most technical focused companies, who is consulted on any technical changes.

In ntl however the tail wags the dog. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Wasn't Peter Black their chief technical man once? I think he came from Broadcast originally but he got pushed out a couple of years back because he didn't agree with the board about the way things were going. He could see the brown stuff approaching the fan!

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Thats going back a fair while, Peter Black was Director of Networks? (I think)
I think he upset a lot of people, I wasn't keen on some of his ideas and I think someone like Peter Black coming into the company from Broadcast, found that no matter how much power he had there were others ganging up to stab him in the back.

I think Alfredo De la Rocco was a director at some point, I heard there was a senior director asked to leave over some money discrepencies and back handers, he dissapeared around that time. I was told about how many millions he placed in orders and maintenance contracts that were never honoured. I lost my job that I went to after ntl cos of that.

My old department was taken over by Trevor Gent, he was a director without a job, so they gave him engineering to look after. I put my notice in and my boss decided to get Gent down to have a chat with us and perhaps I would change my mind. The other guys thought he was a great and would do good things for the department, I said he was an ar**hole! A few months after I left they were saying the same about him, he had just used the position as caretaker until something else cam along, and made lots of false promises.

There have been many in senior engineering positions, and in fact there still are like that. I can think of a few and wonder how the h**l they ever got there. ;)

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

It's not a question of skills it's a question of resources. We have some excellent engineers, not much point though when they are being asked to look after massive areas and do their job with no budget.

The only reason that ntl have any bad network is lack of resources, the skill and talent has always been there to get the job done.

Lack of actual engineers in senior positions isn't a good indicator, looking at Rogers, Comcast, etc, these people have CTO's who are VERY technical indeed.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I agree with that as well. (something wrong here, me agreeing again)

There are some very good technical people at the service tech and network technician level still in ntl, some of the best ones they had left the company of their own accord and others have taken voluntary redundancy in some cases. If there is one problem with the current service/network techs, it's their morale and motivation, they cannot be blamed however for their attitude caused by being constantly s**t on from a great height.

When you move up from the network techs and headend/switch techs, onto the regional guys is where many of the problems lay. Sure there are some very talented people in those jobs, but there is also a lot of bad people who are in those positions through years service with the company and not gaining the positions by technical merit. The bad guys all seem to know one another and protect one another, we used to laugh at some of the corporate engineers, their inexperience and the c**k-ups they used to make. I still find it very funny when I ask some of my old ntl mates about "fred bloggs" etc, and they say he's still with the company!

Some of these senior corporate guys just wouldn't be able to go out into the jobs market and get a job on merit, because they would be found out within minutes if interviewed by a real technical person.

PS: I sat in an interview before christmas with an ex-ntl guy, his CV claimed he was a genuis. I didn't let on that I had worked for ntl, and he was coming out with the biggest load of bull I had ever heard. My manager said after the interview "He seemed to know his stuff about the HFC and Telco networks" :D

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Your post may have got more response if you had found that a whole bunch of UBRs had been removed from the network when you came in this morning, good news doesn't seem to appeal to too many people using the forum. ;)
I hear the "Asteroid Heading for Earth" Board is very popular. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

[/QUOTE] I think Alfredo De la Rocco was a director at some point, I heard there was a senior director asked to leave over some money discrepencies and back handers, he dissapeared around that time. I was told about how many millions he placed in orders and maintenance contracts that were never honoured. I lost my job that I went to after ntl cos of that.

My old department was taken over by Trevor Gent, he was a director without a job, so they gave him engineering to look after. I put my notice in and my boss decided to get Gent down to have a chat with us and perhaps I would change my mind. The other guys thought he was a great and would do good things for the department, I said he was an ar**hole! A few months after I left they were saying the same about him, he had just used the position as caretaker until something else cam along, and made lots of false promises.

There have been many in senior engineering positions, and in fact there still are like that. I can think of a few and wonder how the h**l they ever got there. ;)[/QUOTE]

I think I met Trevor Gent once, did he use to work for United Artists before it became Telewest? I used to work for Mercury Comms and I'm sure I met him at meeting in Woking in about 1992/3 to discuss the cutover of their new Croydon switch from the Mercury Network. I wasn't impressed.
I've seen both of the De la Rocco brothers, Tom & Alfredo (although you wouldn't think they were brothers if you saw them. They were part of Barclay Knapps original entourage. I was working in Cabletel at that time.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

:D I think Alfredo De la Rocco was a director at some point, I heard there was a senior director asked to leave over some money discrepencies and back handers, he dissapeared around that time. I was told about how many millions he placed in orders and maintenance contracts that were never honoured. I lost my job that I went to after ntl cos of that.

My old department was taken over by Trevor Gent, he was a director without a job, so they gave him engineering to look after. I put my notice in and my boss decided to get Gent down to have a chat with us and perhaps I would change my mind. The other guys thought he was a great and would do good things for the department, I said he was an ar**hole! A few months after I left they were saying the same about him, he had just used the position as caretaker until something else cam along, and made lots of false promises.

There have been many in senior engineering positions, and in fact there still are like that. I can think of a few and wonder how the h**l they ever got there. ;)[/QUOTE]

I think I met Trevor Gent once, did he use to work for United Artists before it became Telewest? I used to work for Mercury Comms and I'm sure I met him at meeting in Woking in about 1992/3 to discuss the cutover of their new Croydon switch from the Mercury Network. I wasn't impressed.
I've seen both of the De la Rocco brothers, Tom & Alfredo (although you wouldn't think they were brothers if you saw them. They were part of Barclay Knapps original entourage. I was working in Cabletel at that time.[/QUOTE]

I think Treveor Gent may of been with Telewest, certainly with a company in the London/South of England area. I know he had been around the cable industry for a while, he was looking after ntl's interests in Europe and came back to the UK around the time of the planning for growth. There was no position for him so they gave him our department to look after, he was full of promises but easily seen through as far as I was concerned.

I never met Tom, but I understand he was the powerfull one and Alfredo just rode on his back. I met Alfredo a few times and certainly wouldn't trust him, we had a meeting on one occassion when he decided that he was going to try and force the network techs to work shifts. I was a network tech back in those days and they had been to a big conference in Spain, some manager put forward plans to get the network engineers working shifts, as it would save the company a lot of money in overtime!

The guy who put this proposal forward didn't consider the extra network techs he would need to take on, or there would be no-one about to fix faults in the daytime :D that just about sums up ntl management!

I remember as usual all the techs were up in arms about the plans, but when it came to the meeting one or two were kissing his backside, the majority sat there quiet as mice, and it just left me and another guy to tear him to shreds. :D

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

The story goes that Tom de la Rocco was a Vietnam Vet and he used to go into trances if he heard a helicoptor !!:rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Alfredo always gave me the impression he was on drugs. :D

I heard he's CEO of a company in the Caribbean now, who says failure is never rewarded. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

All these people were part of Barclays clique, they all came across from the states together. There was also a woman among them whose name eludes me, she used to flirt a lot at the Christmas parties, wasn't very interested in listening to the companies operational problems (Cabletel), just as long as the money rolled in. No change there then :D

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

That could of been Leigh Wood, she had her head up her own a**e.

I went into a meeting with her because I was not part of operations, the operational people were not invited because a couple of techs had handed her their notice and told her where to stick her job previously.

She was really enjoying herself saying what a good job her and Barclay and Terry Ryan were doing, she was giving herself a good old ntl pat on the back.
I brought up the subject about a lot of good network techs and other technical people leaving at the time, I mentioned how the company was unable to recruit suitable replacements and they were having to pay more for replacements than some of the better existing guys. She claimed the new ones were better experienced and qualified thats why they were getting more money.

She then went on to say if people dont like it they can leave, she said to me "there are better people out there than you" I said "That goes for all of us" she then went red in the face and abruptly closed the meeting. That was the typical ntl manager, OK patting themself on the back but not wanting to listen to any problems.

I got into trouble because I went back and told all the technicians what she said, the network ops manager said I shouldn't of said it, I explained that I was only repeating what the UK CEO said about ntl's employees and how she made clear how much she valued them. I was always looking forward to another opportunity, because I vowed to have the bitch in tears at my next opportunity.

She left soon after to take 12 months off work to organise her private life, I thought after that meeting that she didn't really have the skills required for that job and she had obviously used some other skills to get the position. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Peter Black was originally the Networks Director, then he became CTO. He was the ultimate empire builder and expanded the Networks division into a bloated behemoth about 7 times the size it is now. It was unworkable and as soon as Wood left and Carter came in he was gone.

Leigh Bennet took over on a temporary basis and the current Networks Director is Steve Upton.

I also met Tom de la Rocco in '94. He was a big guy and was into the construction side of things but he went back to the states very soon after.

the original Cabletel yank clique of Barclay, Leigh Wood, Tom and Alfredo and Dinni Jain.

There was also another guy who once tried motivate us by quoting Yoda from Empire Strikes Back. - Weird.

I have no axe to grind with any of them, they're just part of the companies history.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

That's the one, heard all about her but never actually met her, thank god !!
__________________

They laid the foundations of the crap that ntl find themselves in today. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Missed this one.

ntl do not however carry any traffic for this countries critical national infrastructure as I said in my previous post. All traffic of a sensitive nature carried on the critical national infrastructure must use high grade carrier class crypto links. Currently there is only one device that meets/exceeds the specifications for this work, these units cannot be bought by any tom, dick or harry, there is a list of approved departments/companies who this sort of gear can be supplied. The last thing the governemnt would want is to have one in an unmanned switch site with security guards monitoring remotely in their sleep.

The only network operator in this country with authority to purchase these devices is not ntl! ;)

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

But ntls fibre network has been subcontacted by another carrier for this US Defence contract.

No what big US Defence project has been making the news in the Uk in the past years??? think Fylingdales and missiles.

The other carrier will be buying all the technical kit but sending the signals over the ntl fibre network.

You have to remember that ntl leases individual fibre strands on its network to loads of other companies for their sole use.

Including but not limited to:

Orange
Flag
Level 3
Interroute
BT
Global Crossing

Some of these carriers incl BT may send critical sensitive information over their networks, but actually their networks may include ntl fibre.