Comment Articles

Why BT's grip is getting weaker

Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 02 Dec 1999 12:52 GMT

It's hard to say which of these two statements is the more significant. Technically, Oftel's conclusion -- that BT's continued control of the local loop was damaging the country -- was incredibly important. It's not going to happen overnight; there's a timetable for moving towards an open system by July 2001. There are a lot of questions to be answered, about who's going to be responsible for faults, how multiple services over a single cable will be managed and so on. It's also not clear how BT will be forced to give space in its exchanges to competitors' equipment and how people will arrange connection. But these problems have been sorted out -- to some extent -- in other countries, and by now any complaints BT makes will be seen as crying wolf. To its credit, BT isn't making a fuss.

And this is where the second amazing occurrence comes in. At the Telecommunications Managers Association (TMA) conference in Brighton, BT's chairman Iain Vallance, gave a stirring speech that managed to combine petulance, resignation, contriteness, patronisation and defiance in one glorious mixture of metaphors and special pleading. Here are some choice phrases: "BT is a lollipop man with the unenviable task of restraining over-exuberant children [that's us, people] from dashing across the road at will and ensuring a safe and orderly crossing". BT's billion pound bonus from Internet access isn't a good thing, oh no -- it's making BT into a hated figure. "BT [is in] the role of tax collector on behalf of the other interested parties. We gather the money. We hand it on. And we take the flak". And futhermore. "Everyone, no matter how inexperienced, claims to know better than BT. Perception has lost contact with reality - although eventually reality has a habit of making its presence known". Hah. I wish BT had a habit of making its presence known to us on ZDNet, where the struggle to get any information out of the company has been going on for years.

But still, admits Vallance, BT has "lost the war" on Internet prices and "once you've lost the war of words you have to deal with the peace".

OK. So, BT has lost. Hang out more flags. But what exactly have we, the online consumers, won?