Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

BT.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

God help us...

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

And you can bet they will get a nice fat bonus and a pat on the back for what they have done to NTL.

Neil you do not sound harsh at all, The realty of it all is starting to sink in even with the employees that have defended NTL before now. This can be seen by how much of the bad news leaks out,This in the hope that something can be done to halt the tide of destruction being heaped on the company by managers that could not sort out a ****up in a brewery.

I for one have had enough.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

That all depends on what you mean by "critical national infrastructure". The answer for some traffic is covered by the OSA.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Indeed. Both NTL and Telewest actually carry a significant amount of PSTN traffic (eg phone calls). If you ring one BT line from another BT line, your call may go through NTL/TW's equipment if BT's Exchanges are busy.

A lot of the truely 'critical' stuff, however, goes nowhere near NTL or TW. They wouldn't be touched with a barge poll (and rightly so).

Even 999 calls and management for NTL and TW is outsourced via Cable and Wireless.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Sadly, many places are like this.... including where I work (nothing to do with ntl ;) ). Recently, my employer held an Achievers' Trip - a free vacation in the Caribbean to reward its top sales people! Of course, they all forget that the sales people wouldn't be anywhere without support from my team, nor marketing people to advertise our products, nor HR to ensure they get their big pay cheque, nor the cleaners to clean-up after them, etc... etc... etc... :mad:

Sadly, every place I've worked at so far has had the same sales-oriented culture. :(

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

If NTL went completely bellyup, and was banned from trading, it's assets would be sold off - and that inclused the significant infrastructre that currently exists.

Another company would come in and there would be a cable service again - however it would be a whole new set of people... which might at first seem a good idea, but there would be no experience so we'd pretty much be back at square one.

I would also note the timing of this - it's february, there's only a couple of months till the new financial year - chances are they're just cutting back expenditure for the rest of the financial year, so they can go into new budgets in april...

Re: For Sale
 

Yes, if the battery ran out you would have no dial tone and so not be able to call anybody!
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I doubt the government would let NTL close down the cable networks due to the lack of competition and they would try to ensure some other company took over. As a final straw, I suspect they would take over themselves with a view to reprivatising in a few years (a bit like they did with Railtrack).

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I would imagine that NTL have contingency plans to cover the potential loss of telephony services whilst the situation is sorted out.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Yep, like when they had to withdraw from Ireland last year. They just cut everybody off, and sent the customers letters days later telling them to find another phone company.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

You're talking about two very different scenarios there with very different potential affects on the company.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Teehee, well, yeah.

Let's not forget, though: NTL's aim, make money. Planning for shutdown? Not so much.

I worked in Telewest provisioning for 18 months, and I can state for certain they had 0 plans in case of company closure (for telephony customers, PSTN network etc).

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Now how do you know that for certain? :erm:

I worked in the news industry for many years and took part in many contingency planning meetings at the time of Eddie Shah coming on the scene and News International moving to Wapping. These meetings were highly secret and the plans only known to senior management. Many companies have contingency plans that are known to only a few because of the sensitive nature of them, particularly if unions are a factor.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

Yeah, but in terms of, for example, planning for unrouting PSTN Exchanges etc - I'd need to of known. The department I worked in was a complete and utter mess (and really, I mean that) - we couldn't even manage day to day issues, let alone anything else. Some areas of Telewest are a farce, and telephony is one of them.

Of course, higher up the tree there probably was thought put into it years ago. Could they actually action anything nowdays? Erm.

Re: ntl budget cutbacks
 

I take it that the batteries in the cabs are constantly charged & should be replaced at regular intervals?

So it won't take long, given that there will be no more maintenence before they go belly up & don't get replaced.
And then there will be no emergency services in a power cut etc.

What do BT cabs do about this?