ntl budget cutbacks

Originally Posted by Juan

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.

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.

[injuneer]

Originally Posted by Juan

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.

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.

[Teccie]

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

[Chrysalis]

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

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

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

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!

[Florence]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

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

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.

[homer]

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

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by homer

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

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.

[homer]

Originally Posted by Escapee

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.

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

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by Kits

Telewest has UPS in every cab has backup and seems to have their network running smooth.

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.

Originally Posted by Ignition

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.

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

[Ignition]

Originally Posted by homealone

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

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.

[Andrex]

If Ntl are going to merge they should SACK ALL NTL MANAGERS and get Telewest to run it.

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.

Originally Posted by Ignition

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.

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.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Kevin.Beaumont

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.

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.

Quote:
Originally Posted by injuneer
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.




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

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

ntl will continue to be called ntl.