Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
I fear you and your new love will soon fall out, chalk n cheese. Holiday romance as it’s bank holiday weekend, 1 week anniversary. Then who will you have to talk to. The only one left will be the Bartender., and he will be being paid to listen…
Rod.
“My conclusion is that the CWU is behind what I would call a distraction campaign. Their objective? To 'save' BT from falling into foreign hands when the bid comes - a bit like the rail unions pretending to care about passenger safety, when all they reall care about is where the next pint of beer and vindaloo is coming from! Shame.”
What you forget, conveniently for you, is that up to last year, BT and the CWU have worked together since 1987 to move the company forward, without the need for industrial action. Together they worked in building the company over those years, so much so that even you saw something that would grow in the right direction. Hence you investing in that cooperation.
There is now an agreement on pay taking BT into 2025, assuming that the members give it the OK. In the same way as the board has voted to make an offer that the CWU considers as fair and respectful.
Perhaps you should consider moving from 1972 into 2023 rather than Italy.
The pressures we saw last year over pay was not caused by the CWU or the BT board. It was, and still is, from issues beyond their control. But. They sat down in the end and resolved it, and are still doing so. As an aside, hopefully to give you a perspective of the positive merits if unions. Some years ago a retired colleague of mine died from lung disease caused by Asbestos. He had worked all his life for BT, previously GPO, since the early 70s and remained a CWU member in retirement, thankfully. The only place he was exposed to Asbestos was at work. When diagnosed the CWU helped him win a case for compensation from his employer, without their help he may well not have taken up the case due to its potential costs. He passed away at 65 just 5 years after retiring. Thankfully partially due to similar cases around 15 years ago B T set up an Asbestos register for staff to log any potential exposure while employed by BT/GPO. Another, yet sad, example of the CWU and BT coming together for the common good.
Unlike your bigoted thinking many unions, including the CWU, work well with employers for the good of all…
Poker. In relation to Fleccy’s comments regarding workloads when the economic situation is poor, I agree that there was little impact especially around the 2008 banking sector. During that period I worked for BT, at the time many felt there were going to be job losses, staff, CWU and management. But the reality turned out almost the opposite. People realised that they needed their internet connection and mobile phone as much as gas or electricity, it had become a necessity. So the expected drop in customers for those services did not happen, demand just remained flat in effect. BT not wanting to lose a skilled workforce for when demand would increase redeployed some into other roles, initially short term, some returned to their old roles, some did not. Then we realised that some businesses took the opportunity of a downturn to cut staff, but to also, in a quiet period, upgrade there IT systems ready for the return of normality. This in turn produced work for BT to upgrade those customers networks, strangely one of the sectors to do so was parts of banking. BT also started to increase its rollout of FTTC for better broadband again in readiness for the upturn. So BT is not recession proof, but likely , bearing in mind what happened in 2008, to fair better than you might think…
According to Wiki. C7 stack is a tower of loud speakers. Where as C7 to those who have involvement in telecoms is a signalling system used between exchanges, or was, but is also used in mobile commas. Guess you could use a C7 stack so every Could listen to your phone call…
I would say that giving an insight into whether an individual posting about technical issues in the telecommunications industry has any background to support there comments is of value to the poster. It helps to support their position and strengths their viewpoint to those who have little or no knowledge of the subject. Giving some confidence in there comments. To not give an indication of the basis of their technical understanding helps to devalue anything they may say. Nobody is going to be able to identify one individual based on non personal information like, I have a degree in XYZ , or I was employed by ABC for around X years. Not giving some background to there technical competence, especially after a few requests from people who openly state that they have such qualifications or real world experience in the topic, helps to build the viewpoint that perhaps there knowledge only comes from sites such as wiki or searching the internet for technical topics they actually have little knowledge of. This perception of the poster is further devalued when they start advising that others should not take any notice of a person who has stated they have firsthand knowledge. Then devalued even further when they start to insult or question the possible mental health of the other person…
My error. I appear to have indicated that your personal insults to those of a different view are solely relating to investment. I will clarify. It relates to most subjects on this forum and usually about mental health problems you feel a person has based on there viewpoint…
“ In part it’s a description of the future, set by an organisation operating in its own echo chamber. ”
Is that not the case for any business, preach to their own vested interests and hopefully some outsiders may also find it if interest. BT are not just setting out their view of the future but the future of any telecoms network for the foreseeable future, inside the echo chamber of the telecommunications industry.
As for somebody’s view of what to do with there money and how they think it best serves there situation, why do you almost always end up going down the road of insulting them and being derogatory…
Hi not sure if the rules are the same as when I left a few years ago. You could pay in up to a max of 6 months payments then the account would be frozen until maturity. Once maturity has passed the options were have your money back of have the shares. Hope this may assist.
I think recent history tells the true story on that Rod. And the history yet to come now his phone is unlocked. What sort of person forgets the pin to their phone, or at least claims they have. Perhaps we can return to this once the COVID enquiry is over…
No Rod. It was only Gigabit Vouchers, do you not remember everything else out of his mouth was a lie. Even to the late Queen when he illegally used Prorogation to disband parliament. Or did you manage to forget that little one…
It’s likely BT are upgrading a large percentage of rural areas at present using, Gigabit vouchers from the government. It requires a large percentage of the residents in an area to agree to signing up to a product delivered over the new FTTP for the first 12 months after go live. That can be with BT or any ISP committed to delivery at that location. After that you can do what you want. So with rural areas not really being targeted by many of the Altnets it’s a smart move by BT. Locals go from 3-4 mbs to 150 mbs having suffered from poor broadband for many years to 21st century over night. FTTC delivers reasonable speeds for most in urban areas so likely are put lower down the list for now. Probably the only good thing Boris has done for the UK…
I have always been of the opinion that to sell off the family silver would not be the thing to do and still hold that view, but. Drahi has had talks with the board and the CWU in the past, likely also, members of the government, even off the record. Could he be after Openreach rather than the whole of BT. I know, debt, pension deficit, but perhaps he is accepting of those costs compared to the potential future income generated by a slimed down OR in the next few years.
If he was prepared to cover the pension payments already agreed up to 2030 on a per head employee basis just for OR staff in the BTPS at the time of sale and any other debts related solely to OR. In. Few years the staff numbers will fall drastically but there will still be plenty of work for the remaining staff to do even after FTTP is almost done. OR still are responsible for most of the network installation for new or upgrades to retail and business products as well as their maintenance needs. Just a thought, but would he have had those conversations and then increased his holding afterwards if he did not feel that what he is hoping to achieve could come to pass. I do not see the government having OR ownership not being in UK hands as they would not have any involvement with sensitive information and BT could use there staff to work at any potentially sensitive sites on behalf of OR if necessary. Another possible outcome, who knows at this stage, watch out for next week’s episode…
Well Aus3009. Jansen, same as his predecessors, they come, they go. Trooli, I am sure you can find that info if it’s of interest to you, not to me. Finally your link to Wiki, not a lot really, but it perhaps reinforces my view of where your telecoms knowledge originates rather than something more formal…
Aus3009. Your reply to my enquiry regarding any formal qualifications or real world involvement in the telecommunications industry, was as expected. But thank you for the response, disappointing as it may be for those who perhaps would have liked a more informed reply in order to give confidence in your technical competence.
Yes my comment regarding unused fibre installation by Trooli, gives an insight to where I may reside. Thing is there network runs from Dorset along the south coast to Kent then up the east coast to Suffolk and to the north of London, lovely parts of the country, found a lovely seafood restaurant once on my travels in Folkestone overlooking the harbour, nice place the south coast, still back to the matter in hand. A fairly large area to look in even for an educated guess, me thinks. As you say there are ways that a users device can be identified, there ISP keeping records, as required by UK law for 12 months, but not all countries require this so it is dependent on where you are in the world. Reputable VPN providers appear to operate in locations where there are no legal requirements for the storing of customers data beyond that needed to purchase a subscription, so no record of a users internet data, apparently there is a very good one based in Switzerland that confirms that the originating IP address and other end user data is not passed beyond there VPN servers. But as I have stated some of that is outside of my knowledge base, but their website has mention of security around customers data, location and use.
The biggest problem with many people is they tend to use the same login data and even the same profile name over various public access sites, can you believe that eh… Another misconception is that once an account is deleted then it’s gone for ever, not always so as it is still there to be found if you know how to lookout ,so I am told, it’s a mine field to navigate the internet these days, and that’s without going into the, Darkweb…
Aus3009. Really impressed with your knowledge of transportation over the internet. It is not my field of in depth knowledge, but horses for courses. So as you appear to have a vast wealth of understanding on this topic, would you be so kind as to advise this community where your knowledge base originated and how long you have held your qualifications, or real world involvement in the telecommunications industry. Many thanks in advance…
Quite correct the core network will require periodic upgrades, at a cost to the network owner, but that has always been the case. The connectivity required to that core, by data centres, cloud servers, will be paid for by the centre’s customers. That income will, doses now, cover the cost of core infrastructure upgrades and provide profit. The core will require far less upgrades than the networks customers will . It will be customers that at the end of the day that will have ongoing expense as demand for there services increases. Network owners have and will going forward have planed what their core will need to deliver and be steps ahead of the data transport needs.