ntl budget cutbacks - Page 2

Escapee · 02-02-2005, 21:11

Has anyone else in ntl heard that the latest redundancies were because the shareholders wouldn't release any of the money from the broadcast sale to pay for the police contract c**k-up?

Apparently the shareholders told the directors, it's your problem you sort it out!

I am also wondering now what security arrangements ntl are making to guard the headends that were remotely monitored by cctv from broadcast buildings, ntl home got rid of all the securty guards to improve (cough cough) the security arrangements.

I just exchanged PM's with someone here and told him about an incident that happened over the christmas, I didn't post it before because I would of only got accused of lying as I did with a similar incident a while ago by a bum kissing ntl employee.

A node went off service after 8pm on christmas eve, and the fault was not arttended until the following bank holiday monday. The reason for the lack of suitable call-out cover was cost saving, the management were made aware that this sort of thing could happen and they decided to take a gamble by not providing suitable cover.

It all looks like levels of service will be going downhill sharply.

Neil · 02-02-2005, 21:31

'Due to yet more budget cutbacks (they had more money than this while bankrupt!) the managers of ntl in their infinite wisdom (

) are cutting back on various things in an attempt to save more cash.

Mark my words-these things will be detrimental to your service, but the bean counters in charge really couldn't give a toss.

These masterful steps are....

Quote:

Only Network Masters/Outages affecting more than 30 telco subs are to be attended out of hours.

Power Outages will be attended until 11pm, then cab will have to run on batteries until 8am.

No CATV/BB Outages to be attended out-of-hours.

No Service Refferals to be attended out-of-hours.

No Preventative Maintenance, only fire-fighting.

No Upgrades.

No overtime.

The monkeys responsible for coming up with these masterful plans to enhance the balance sheet *cough* sorry-your service, have of course been promoted to a major position where they can make even more of an impact on your experience as a mug *cough* sorry-customer.

"Thanks for choosing ntl, best hope your BB / telephone doesn't break at 5:01PM on a Friday..."

Good luck......

Escapee · 02-02-2005, 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neil

'Due to yet more budget cutbacks (Christ they had more money than this while bankrupt ffs) the managers of ntl in their infinite wisdom are cutting back on various things in an attempt to save more cash.

Mark my words-these things will be detrimental to the service, but hey-the bean counters in charge really couldn't give a toss.

These masterful steps are:

The mor.... manager responsible for coming up with these masterful plans to enhance the balance sheet *ahem* your service has of course been promoted to a major position where he can make even more of an impact on your experience as a mug *ahem* customer.

Thanks for choosing ntl, best hope your BB / telephone doesn't break at 5:01PM on a Friday...'

Good luck......

And just to put one bit into perspective here.... the bit about running on battery back-up!

Only Telco cabinets generally have battery back-up, the battery back-up UPS project was shelved a number of years ago. That means only a small number of CATV cabinets have battery back-up at present.

To make that clearer....Cable Modems are carried on the "CATV" network, so not attending CATV outages means your "always on" cable modem, will in fact be off until the next day for something as simple as a mains surge causing the trip to cut out, all for teh sake of sending an on-call tech out to reset the trip at the cabinet!

Service will be very much affected by these service level cuts, that are a direct result of understaffing due to the recent redundancies.

Florence · 02-02-2005, 21:51

I know my cab has no batery backup its already had downtime due to power failure...........

Maybe we should have a vote on if the customers have any faith that the NTL management. Has the customers rights to the level of service they pay for being devalued at the expence of managment jobs.

With the number of staff made redundant over the last 12 months NTL must have more managers than they need so perhaps we should see redundancies in managment posts only now.

Womble · 02-02-2005, 21:53

There is another down downside of leaving the CATV off for the night is, once the amps go cold it might not be that easy to restart them in the morning! They are on 24/7/365, then all of a sudden they are goning to be without power for the night, they will cool down, maybe a tiny bit of moisture will get in....and bang.
Another well thought out plan by the monkeys, I mean managment (calling them managment is a bit 1984 new speak-ish, as they couldn't manage a **** in a brothel!)

The other downside is my porn downloads won't be finished overnight

Escapee · 02-02-2005, 22:01

I have just been informed that South Wales will only have 3 on call technicians at any one time, to cover all services. ie: Telco, CATV and Broadband.

They will be covering an area stretching from Cwmbran, Newport, Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Treforest and all the Swansea areas.

For those who know the area they can conform it's a big one!

This is for financial reasons, and the number of network technicians they now have after the latest redundancies means they would struggle to up the callout cover without employing.

Womble · 02-02-2005, 22:28

To quote the Doors.............

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end

http://www.lyricsdomain.com/4/doors/the_end.html

Neil · 02-02-2005, 23:44

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...-for-customers

Halcyon · 02-02-2005, 23:48

Looks like we are all going to have to become NTL engineers ourselves then and repair NTL boxes and sort all problems ourselves at this rate.

I wonder what this spells for the speed upgrades planned. Will they go ahead.?

Alan Waddington · 03-02-2005, 00:09

*No preventative maintenance*

Great plan. Didn't the railways have a similar plan a few years ago.

*Power Outages will be attended until 11pm, then cab will have to run on batteries until 8am.*

So, can we sue for negligence if the batteries give out & those 999 calls don't go through?

trebor · 03-02-2005, 00:10

will it cost them more in refunds for loss of service and customers getting fed up and canceling services than the amount they may save with this mad idea.

I thinks kits may be right about managers, pretty soon the only people they will be managing will be themselves. (wonder who'll get the blame then)

Seti · 03-02-2005, 03:53

Quote:

Originally posted by Escapee
I have just been informed that South Wales will only have 3 on call technicians at any one time, to cover all services. ie: Telco, CATV and Broadband.

They will be covering an area stretching from Cwmbran, Newport, Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Treforest and all the Swansea areas.

For those who know the area they can conform it's a big one!

Omg Please tell me that is a bad joke. That is an aboslutely HUGE area and how on earth three people are expected to cover a radious of 550 miles is beyond me !

Sian

TheInsider · 03-02-2005, 07:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Waddington

*No preventative maintenance*

Great plan. Didn't the railways have a similar plan a few years ago.

*Power Outages will be attended until 11pm, then cab will have to run on batteries until 8am.*

So, can we sue for negligence if the batteries give out & those 999 calls don't go through?

And dont forget, The engineers will not pick the job up till 8.00 am. They then have to get to that cab which can take a while. The battery backup only lasts for about 4 hours on most cabs. I have seen it last for far less than that.

So let me see.

They cut call centers to improve customer service.

They reduce the hours those call centres are open to improve customer service

They cut Engineers to improve customer service.

They do No Preventative Maintenance to improve customer service.

They reduce the amount of hours they spend fixing faults to improve customer service.

If these are not the actions of a company on its last legs i dont know what are.

What next

Reminds me of the information Minister for Baghdad when the yanks where all around him and he said everything is OK

Escapee · 03-02-2005, 08:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheInsider

And dont forget, The engineers will not pick the job up till 8.00 am. They then have to get to that cab which can take a while. The battery backup only lasts for about 4 hours on most cabs. I have seen it last for far less than that.

So let me see.

They cut call centers to improve customer service.

They reduce the hours those call centres are open to improve customer service

They cut Engineers to improve customer service.

They do No Preventative Maintenance to improve customer service.

They reduce the amount of hours they spend fixing faults to improve customer service.

If these are not the actions of a company on its last legs i dont know what are.

What next

Reminds me of the information Minister for Baghdad when the yanks where all around him and he said everything is OK

I'm sure anytime soon we will expct an announcement like the one from Barclay Knapp gave out, saying "we are not in any financial difficulty"

The truth is they have never been out of it, my friends say they are still wasting money in other areas. They are not actually saving a lot of money by cutting back on the amount of techs on network call, but on the other hand the redundancies mean they are unable to offer a higher level of cover anyway.

One of my contacts said they are still sending non esssential network spares out from the central stores by courier for next day delivery, even if the item is just to replenish stock levels in the region. I never thought morale could get any lower when I left over 3 years ago, but the treatment of network technicians is now disgusting, I am sure the problem will get worse as more leave on their own decision. I also heard yesterday that another one in South Wales has found another job and put his notice in, thats on top of the ones already highlighted for redundancy. I was told they are not going to change their minds and keep one of the guys being made redundant or employ a replacement.

They do not care in the slightest how many people leave.
Crazy

Florence · 03-02-2005, 08:30

Time to give the share holders a feeling of the customer revolt. Lets start finding ways to get our information over to these people that we have taken enough from the present managment and wish to have some sort of customer focuses management as if the customers go then they have a company worth nothing.