Campaign for Unmetered Telecommunications
 
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Cable and Wireless Communications (4 May 2000)

A personal note by Alastair Scott, formerly the Moderator of CUT.

The takeover of Cable and Wireless Communications (CWC) residential services by NTL is almost complete.

If CWC had not existed it would have been necessary to invent it: general dissatisfaction with its service, particularly its threats - which were never followed through - to take away unmetered offpeak Internet services from some of its subscribers, sparked off Cable and Wireless Watch. On running the Watch I realised the issues raised were universal, a meeting took place in February 1998, CUT began, and you can see the rest.

From all that I have seen I am doubtful that an 'unmetered campaign' would have existed on such a large scale in a parallel universe lacking the negative stimulus of CWC.

Frankly, I am grimly satisfied that CWC is consigned to oblivion; that it lasted as long as three years says much about the UK telecommunications industry.

In mid-1997, after being formed from four smaller cable companies, it seemed to start well with an advertising campaign which everyone agreed was superb, getting the Cable and Wireless Communications name known amongst the general public. Then, for reasons never made clear, the company seemed to lose interest in residential cable subscribers. It was incapable of solving customer service problems, had endless trouble with billing, never released cable modems despite numerous suggestions that it would do so, and digital television - which it did eventually release in some areas - is now seven months late, and counting, in Greater London.

In fact, for the last year of its existence, CWC seemed moribund.

The £10pcm levy it imposed, in late 1999, on its customers who retained unmetered Internet access was perverse, being opposite to the direction the UK telecommunications industry was taking even before the current spread of unmetered offers, and implemented with determination. If only CWC had displayed such zeal to positive ends.

I hope that NTL, once it gets past the inevitable organisational upheavals, revitalises the greater part of the United Kingdom cable industry. That industry has a bad reputation, reinforced yesterday by hints from Chello, an international provider of broadband Internet access, that it may enter the United Kingdom market by bypassing cable, contrary to its custom in every other country it serves.

And Telewest, with services such as SurfUnlimited and Blueyonder, took the lead while the NTL takeover of CWC stalled both companies by being referred to the Competition Commission. Stephen Byers' action in doing so had no obvious rationale and was never satisfactorily explained.

Finally, it is absurd that BT is ahead in broadband provision in many cable areas. Certainly I would have loved to take up a cable modem if offered - but the delays were seemingly endless and I finally gave up, cancelled my CWC line, went back to BT and look forward to BT Openworld.

You may download the whole Cable and Wireless Watch site as a zipfile [1.2MB].

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