ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/l...ing%20Standard

This bit made me chuckle.....

Looks like even the Met fell for the old ntl "Coming Soon" chestnut!

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

I find it disturbing the amount of pleasure you get in mocking and hating on ntl..:erm:


...please don't hurt me :p:

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

I'm sure this has been posted before... can't think when but I'm sure of it :)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Well, its dated for today, so looks new to me.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Neil provides a good balance to all those who luv ntl ;)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

I think they lost some Police tetra contracts in other areas? ( it was not the Met)

I remember they were recruiting for the project and some of the people due to start never turned up on their start date. I believe they got to hear that the police force in question was not happy and about to kick the ntl contract into touch.

I know the recruitment agencies were phoning around like mad to fill the positions, but I'm not sure what was the outcome. ie: if they did lose the contact or not!

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

contractors will kill your buisness when will they learn. Can be seen right across ntl.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Yep, using contractors is very very risky, especially for such a big deal. Having worked for several years for Andersen Consulting / Accenture, I've seen the risk a company takes with not always selecting the right teams for a project.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Don't mention Anderson!!!!

I think it was Anderson that were consulting ntl when they were planning the implementation of digital TV around the headends. Their "engineers" (term used loosely) turned up at the headend to carry out a technical survey, they had no test equipment and didn't have a clue how to use a spectrum analyser to measure the levels when offered it.

I understand ntl was paying over a hundred pounds an hour per contractor for their technical expertise :disturbd:

Thats no dig at you gareth, well paid contractors are usually worth it. But as you rightly say it's risky, Generally it costs a lot for good contractors, employing cheap contractors is always false economy as some have no worry about the job after they have finished their contract.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Can I just point out that it's not a £25m contract that ntl have lost, but rather a £25m refund that ntl have had to pay to the Police?

The contract was for nearly £3bn and was terminated.

Bad news for ntl, but then if they had done the job properly then it wouldn't have been an issue.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Thread title edited. :)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

'NTL lose £3 billion contract' would have been a little more eye catching ;)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Happy now? oops:

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

No worries, mate. No offence taken. During my time at Andersen/Accenture I worked with some of the greatest and the worst people I've had the fortune to work with.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Oh yes indeedie. :D Far juicier now.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Where does it say the ntl contract was 3 Billion ? All I can see is a reference to the 2.9 Billion Airwave digital system - and that's the whole system, not ntl's bit.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Also, was this NTL (the bit home users are concerned with), or NTL Broadcast, which has recently been sold off?

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

FYI-I have changed the thread title back to the one I posted originally. :)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Presumably ntl were awarded a contract to supply a system costing £2.9 billion, & because of their inability to deliver it efficiently The Met have taken them to court to terminate the contract (& got themselves awarded £25 million in the process)

Although I have changed the title of the thread back to what it was originally, I can't help but feel I was right to rename it "ntl lose £3 billion Met Police Contract", as that is exactly what has happened.....:shrug:

[Edit]-In fairness (& hindsight), the article isn't crystal clear whether the "£2 .9 billion system" was ntl's offering or was already in place & ntl were adding to it, but what is clear is that they failed to deliver whatever it was they signed up to.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

It's perfectly clear to me, because I have been reading about it for years in ComputerWeekly. :)

Ntl's bit is nothing like 2.9 Billion - that is the overall cost of the whole nationwide project, of which BT and Motorola are the main contractors.

See this article from September 2001.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Article106105.htm

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

ntl broadcast :)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

So what part were NTL involved in?

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

ntl tendered and won some "local" contracts for police forces, some of this work was computer ie: control room, and other parts were installing the Tetra radios into police vehicles. I seem to remember their tender involved Cogent as a partner for at least one of the forces, I guess this would be a national thing. (correct me if I'm wrong)

As I said in an earlier post, ntl did I understand win some contracts and then possobly lost them at an early stage. Some of the people they had offered jobs to work on this project had some inside info and did not turn up for work on their proposed start date, leaving ntl with a shortage of skilled resources.

I guess some accepted the positions that had a start date some months away, and continued to seek a better position elsewhere! ;)

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

This was reported in last quarters results. It is not new "news". It practically wiped out ntl:Broadcasts profits for that quarter.

A liability that ntl are now rid of.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

And just to think, Broadcast were the jewel in the crown!

Broadcast was without a doubt a very professional operation before being bought out by CableTel, unfortunately it didn't take that many years under the current regime to loose the good reputation that they had built up and earned over decades.

I expect ntl had plenty of project managers on that project though, but not many engineers. :rolleyes:

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

Actually the Broadcast set-uphas changed very little since "cabletel" bought it. The senior management and engineering field force, although reduced, has kept most of the experienced personnel. Mainly because they were too hard to get rid off. Most of Broadcast personnel that was made redundant in the last 7 years has been voluntary.

Re: ntl lose Met Police Contract.
 

I am well aware of that Pierre, but generally the natural wastage because of the average workforce age has not been replenished with people of similar skills. I actually came under the broadcast banner for a period during one of the many re-orgs, at the time headends in our region became the responsibility of Broadcast. This was more of a paperwork excercise to stop a manager loosing his job than anything else, but I did soon realise how many of the broadcast employees felt about their employer. I also noticed the same later on when I worked on a project at Crawley court, there was a definite resentment from broadcast because they had become associated with these "Cable TV Cowboys" (To quote one comment)

I dont think things were helped when field staff were all on different terms and conditions, one guy would get almost double the callout rate of another, meal allowance was different and lodgings when working away. I know in the local region it was a big issue and some of the newer field guys left because of this double standard treatment.

Theres no doubt they have lost the professional image they once had, I believe that is down to the ntl philosophy where engineers are a very dirty word and like something stuck to the bottom of many managers shoes. It's a world where project managers, stats co-ordinators and any office administrator is held in high esteem.

I'm not trying to turn it into an argument, but it's just the way anyone with engineering focus would view things.