Comments on: Broken Promises Behind BT CEO Exit

By: Ribbit Web Telephony Platform; The Future of the Phone Acquired by British Telecom - BuzzYA!

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:35:27 +0000

[...] Telephony expert Om Malik has been watching the company’s progress closely though, and says that it has largely failed to live up to its promise. Can Ribbit move the needle for BT? We think it could in a big [...]

By: How Realistic Is BT’s Fiber Broadband Plan? - GigaOM

How Realistic Is BT’s Fiber Broadband Plan? - GigaOM — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:01:05 +0000

[...] new CEO, Ian Livingston, whom I had a chance to meet back in 2006, is a sales maven, given his background with a high-street retailer and an upstart ISP. Some say [...]

By: vijay

vijay — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:22:13 +0000

The fundamental problem is that networking on a large scale is hard. If networks ran on powerpoint, we’d be good to go, but they don’t. Folks have been pointing out that operational complexity is a killer, but it doesn’t seem to filter through the glossy screen of revenue uptick, capturing the value chain marketing that gets sold. There will be more fun stuff coming down the pike on this one.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:31:45 +0000

I think the big problem with BT and any other old phone company is the attitude towards their customers. they still have the old monopoly mind-set and that is hard to change. That is the single biggest problem. On top of that, the sheer size of a "phone company" makes it incapable of execution and doing interesting things fast.

@ Tommy: They used to own 02. They sold it to Telefonica to bring down their debt and grow their business.

By: Tommy

Tommy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:02:20 +0000

The whole thing with Phorm has hurt BTs image. I don’t think I’d ever sign up until the sort it out. But as for “The company has no consumer mobile service and it continues to lose consumer lines.”

Don’t they own O2?

By: Darren Stuart

Darren Stuart — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:51:22 +0000

I think unless they change they will go the way of the post office when wireless tech gets to a point where you do not need a telephone line.

My problem with BT is offshore call centres, I have a friend that works for thier tech support and says 90% of her work is dealing with complaints from people not happy with the offshore support. However they are not alone in this sky have done this now and I had a run in with their offshore call centres when they killed their outgoing smtp server for all to use with no warning.

BT are stuck between a rock and a hardplace just like the post office.