BT to Offer Free Internet Calls

gnoos writes "The BBC is reporting that BT is to start offering customers free internet telephone calls if they sign up to broadband in December. The offer will be limited to the first 50,000 people who sign up and users will need to use BT's internet telephony software, known as BT Communicator"

Comments

It's really not usable

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote a song. Enjoy!

Would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a cracker?

A cracker is an animal that likes to waste. For only a McDonald's taste will he make haste.
And take away his SUV, see he's only 5 foot 3.
But if you like watching TV and being a slacker, you might grow up to be a cracker.
Or would you rather be a spic?

A spic won't do anything but sleep by a brook. He can't write his name or read a book.
And to fool the people is his only thought - though he is slippery, he still gets caught.
But then if that sort of life is what you wish, you might grow up to be a spic.

Or would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
Or would you rather be a nigger?

A nigger is an animal with a really long dong, he kind of looks like old King Kong.
His back is brawny and his brain is weak. He's just plain stupid with a stubborn streak.
And by the way, if you hate to go to school, you may grow up to be a nigger.
Or would you rather be a kike?

A kike is an animal with money in his face. His traditions are a terrible disgrace.
He ain't got no manners when he steals your food. He's fat and lazy and extremely rude.

And all these lowlifes aren't in my crew
But every day I cap quite a few
So you see it's all up to you
You can be better than you are
You could be swingin' on a star

-- teens4christ

Re:It's really not usable

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of why the parent is unfeasible, even from the dialectic viewpoint of the GPL. We need concrete solutions to these resident paridigms or there will never be justice for our peoples.

Not to mobiles, though

[Dancin_Santa]

Does anyone even have a ground line anymore? I'd be happy if I could just get the ADSL service without the vestigial phone service.

So this "freebie" is only good for house-to-house calling, basically. I guess if I was some old geezer in his workshop that needed to call another old geezer this might be a good deal. Otherwise, I'm using my cellphone.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Timber_Z]

Hmm, last I check through almost every major emergency the phone lines are about the last thing to go out, heck even power loss doesn't effect corded telephones. Cell Phones while improving, simply don't have the same reputation. And Internet Service can be very flaky at times.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone even have a ground line anymore?

Yes.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Gee, it's not good enough for you! You want The World! Hell, it's only good for house to house! And as everyone knows, only old geesers in their workshops use land line anymore! Good lord, get a grip! Anyway, if it's not "good enough" for you, I guess you will not be using it! But if they offered it in my area, where as an "old geezer" I own a house, I might just use it!

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[dshaw858]

Hmm, last I check through almost every major emergency the phone lines are about the last thing to go out, heck even power loss doesn't effect corded telephones. Cell Phones while improving, simply don't have the same reputation.

Power loss doesn't really effect cell phones, either. Hell, there could be a complete cable, phone and power outage at your house but your cell phone would still have reception. I'd think that they'd have the best reputation!

- dshaw

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[gordo3000]

no, but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your cell phone almost useful. and for all my experience, land lines give the best and far and away most consistent reception to be had.

Why can't people realize there are advantages and disadvantages to both types of phones. I will not make many important calls on my cell phone in certain areas(my dorm at my school for the last two years) because reception is just that bad at times. Its never at a dependable level. But that is what I have where I live so land lines are the best option. My friends in UF only have a cell phone because they are rarely in their apartment and reception is near 100% no matter where they are.

Slowly though, cell phones are moving to replace most land line uses, but for now, cell phones aren't the end all answer for everyone out there.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[stoborrobots]

I'd think that they'd have the best reputation! ... except when they drop out unexpectedly in the middle of a call ...

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Does any___ even _____ gr__nd l__ anymo_____

You're breaking up. Can you call back when you get better reception? Or when you get to a real phone?

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise you are going to wake up slashdots resident neo-luddites saying things like that?

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

funny cause my land line is never used for phone calls anymore, just internet. cancelled all long distance service, no call waiting, etc, and voila, very cheap internet! not too fast though, but hey, i ain't downloading movies or swapping files, so ain't not big thing.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[zmollusc]

your cell phone would still have reception Well, yes. Almost any conductor will 'receive' radio waves.
The main problem with cellphones during a power outage is that they need to connect to a cellphone relay mast (those things they stick on buildings everywhere).Can anyone enlighten me as to how many of these have UPS and/or backup generators?

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course people still have land lines. I use nothing but. Some of us make international calls; you'd have to be crazy to do that on a mobile.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[gordo3000]

ok, I need to learn to type and preview comments, and not be moron. read the first line as

but living next to the wrong building(my sister's apartment) doesn't make your landline useless.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Cookeisparanoid]

I hear you why the heck do the phone companies force me to pay for a voice phone line when all I ever use is adsl, in the case of the UK i guess because we have a monopolistic company dictating how technology is used, if only I had cable in m area.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[OrangeTide]

Does anyone even have a ground line anymore?

Cellphone service is spotty at best in Silicon Valley. You'd think a major tech hub would have decent technology. San Francisco and San Jose also got DSL a year later than Atlanta, Chicago, and St.Paul/Minneapolis.

Perhaps 1 out of a 1000 people here don't have a land line. (that's 0.1%)

I'd be happy if I could just get the ADSL service without the vestigial phone service.

If you don't like the phone server you can get SDSL. Also some place have unbundled ADSL. Which is exactly what you want. I think even SBC will do that these days, but don't quote me on that.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[EvilOpie]

Power loss to an individual home won't cause a problem with cell phone reception, but when a whole neighborhood goes black, then the cell towers go down too.

We had an ice storm a while ago here, and parts of our city were without power for nearly a week from where ice-laden trees gave out under the strain and took out power lines when they fell. We still managed to have phone reception, but I couldn't get a cellular signal at all in places where I normally had a good or perfect signal.

When the cell towers in our area went down, the ones that were still up were too far away to be of any use. Unfortunately even cell towers still need power to operate.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hell, there could be a complete cable, phone and power outage at your house but your cell phone would still have reception. I'd think that they'd have the best reputation!

Not necessarily so. When the power went out along much of the Eastern North American grid (Aug. 2003), my cell phone wasn't of much use; a base station requires electricity . . . and once its UPS beeps its last, a cell phone is of little use. There may have been base stations somewhere running on generators, but I don't think my provider had any.

POTS, on the other hand, kept a-chuggin' on.

Re:Not to mobiles, though

[dshaw858]

I didn't mean to imply that telephone lines are useless- far from it, they don't run out of batteries (most of the time), don't have static-y reception all the time, and are very useful in themselves. My point was that in an emergency (let's say a fire), it might be difficult to get to a landline phone, where a cellphone would be in a pocket, for example. Also, in an earthquake (I'm in San Diego, I have to mention Earthquakes!) telephone lines go down, but cell towers are usually reliable. I didn't mean to start an argument over which is better, since cellphones and landlines both definitely have their strong points.

- dshaw

Please tell me..

[rubee]

Please tell me this isn't a Windows-only service.

Re:Please tell me..

[Ummu]

It probably is... Nobody loves us Linux users. "Sorry, we don't support linux." "What's "Linux"? I'm asking for your Windows Version, not your web browser." "Screw off, penguin-boy!"

Re:Please tell me..

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

It's a Windows only service. But look at it this way: Good use for an old P-3 box. Use your Linux box for real cutting edge apps!

Re:Please tell me..

[rubee]

leaving on a 300 watt computer for use as a phone is over kill. there's got to be some sort of stand-alone solution that basically replaces the phone altogether.

Re:Please tell me..

[Anonymous Coward]

what, the bluetooth service?

Re:Please tell me..

[Richard Dick Head]

www.winehq.org wants you in their development army. Enlist now!

Re:Please tell me..

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no such words in modern proper English as "Quoth", "Boxen", or "Ummm..."

boxen - \Box"en\ (b[o^]ks"'n), a. Made of boxwood; pertaining to, or resembling, the box

Re:Please tell me..

[reverius]

Signing up for Cox cable internet when I moved into my apartment...

Me: "Hi, I'd like my account activated" (there is a web-based activation procedure that requires some activeX components, but it says to call if you're having problems... and apparently not running windows is a "problem")

Support: "OK. What windows version are you running?"

Me: "I'm not running Windows, I'm running Linux."

Support: "Is that 98 or XP?"

I nearly choked on my own digust.

Re:Please tell me..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the beauty of renting all inclusive. Good for growing dope too.

Re:Please tell me..

[jimicus]

I think I can beat that. Spin back to 1999, I was having trouble uploading a website to the hosting provider.

Me: "I'm trying to connect to your FTP server but it says 'Connection Refused'."
Tech: "What FTP client are you using?"
Me: "FTP. Command line FTP."
Tech: "Er... hold the line a moment..."

Re:Please tell me..

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

boxen - \Box"en\ (b[o^]ks"'n), a. Made of boxwood; pertaining to, or resembling, the box

Too much time on your hands? You know EXACTLY what the parent means, stop acting like a teen aged ass.

Oh! Sorry! You ARE a teen aged ass!

Third Post!

[scubacuda]

Yeah, but it's still got a headset that plugs into your computer.

I'd much rather have a service like Vonage. It's simple to use, has a nice web GUI, is incredibly clear, and can work seemlessly with your existing telephone number.

Re:Third Post!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd much rather have a service like Vonage. It's simple to use, has a nice web GUI, is incredibly clear, and can work seemlessly with your existing telephone number.

Clearly you have not tried Vontage on BT.

BT - It sucks and blows at the same time.

Re:Third Post!

[NardofDoom]

Would it be possible to use your modem port like the RJ-11 port on the Vonage box? Would that even be possible?

Re:Third Post!

[timts]

netmeeting, yahoo messenger, so many free stuff have offered this for free FOR MANY YEARS.

skype already offers free telephone calls online

[Anonymous Coward]

so I need this...why?

Anyone else thought this was about BitTorrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than the toothless Brits, why would anyone else in the 99.9999% of the rest of world care about something they can't make use of?

Re:Anyone else thought this was about BitTorrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your mom know you're online again ?

3...2...1...

[Anonymous Coward]

before...warez over the phone!!

God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to understand as an American how important this maneuver is to BT. Unlike the States, The UK and other EU nations prefer mobile phones over landlines to such an extent that telecos are losing money. The only source for revenue for this redundant system presently is DSL service, and even that is being offered at reduced rates.

The American business model for telco service has always been charge a little extra for flat rate local calls and save thousands of dollars in not having to itemize billing for something that costs jack squat. BT has clearly acknowledged that this is the only way to compete with the booming mobile phone industry is to go VoIP and following the American standard but because it's a new technology they don't have to say America was right.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Xrikcus]

Exceping that BT has already done it with the standard technology. For a fairly small additional monthly fee they offer unmetered calls anywhere in the UK, it did take a while to follow the US model though, but I think this has a lot to do with the higher concentration of people in local areas due to the higher population concentration (the whole of London and the surrounding areas is local to itself, for example, nearly 1/5 of the UK population is local to everyone else in that fifth) so reduced profit from long distance.

The real problem with have here where you have an advantage in the US is that calls to mobiles (or from one mobile net to another) are *very* expensive.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Goth Biker Babe]

Absolutely.

I have a land line with BT but it's really only there as a way of getting ADSL in to the house. I seem to remember that the actually cost of calls on that line last month were around a couple of dollars. In fact the usage of the land line has just increased a little as I recently invested in a set of cordless (DET) phones for the landline which means I can wander around the house (and the yard) and use the landline instead of my mobile.

But even then I have an free off-peak call quota bundled with my cellphone contract which means that if I'm calling another landline or someone else on the same cellphone provider it's still cheaper to use the cellphone. Also here in Europe texting is for more prevalent than the US and I have some many free texts bundled in my contract that I never use them up.

Basically I wonder how the phone companies make money. I pay a monthly cellphone contract. I got a free phone (Sony Ericsson T610), most of my calls fall in to the contract's bundled allowances and I pay a monthly land-line contract and hardly use it for calls. In fact both my cellphone and my land-line are used more for data than for speech and that's what I end up paying extra for whether that be a monthly ADSL cost or GPRS charges.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

So what? Who needs mobiles? Is talking on the phone ever THAT fucking urgent? Just find a god damn pay phone.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, pretty much everyone in the UK thought flat rate local calls seemed a good idea. BT begged to differ. I heard at one point their profits were something like £97 a second, so BT decided that everyone was clearly wrong.

When the number of moblile phone companies in the UK went from two to four, a number of firsts were scored. Like per-second billing, instead of "units", as in "pay for what you didn't use because we can do what we want". Like Caller ID. Like actually making some effort to look like you care about your customers.

So roll on cable, roll on VOIP, and good riddance BT. Maybe one day somebody at your company will read a book on the concept of "customer service", but it's too late. No-one likes you and they haven't for years.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

Just find a god damn pay phone.

Lots of luck! I have a friend in Turku, Finland and he knows where the payphone is. He has to take the bus 7km to use it. That is the payphone in Turku. Using a mobile is cheaper.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

To characterise this move by BT as related to charge rates (&billing) on local loop phone calls is to miss the point.

BT operate huge trunk routes AND have a mobile phone network to run as well. So they generate turnover from *all* segments of the market.

It's been widely recognised that every major telco carrier has to move *all* their traffic to IP else they will go the way of the dinosaurs. Currently BT are running older digital voice switches along side new IP switches and in terms of capacity and future upgrade (to improve bandwidth, volume pricing etc), they need to reduce overheads and so will go completely IP (one day!).

This is more market testing from BT. A proof of concept if you will.

They're prob testing the QoS side of things and of course some IPvoice gateway stuff.

And the faster they convert the better.
If US telco's aren't doing this as well, expect to see closures in the future as newer smarter soft-switch enabled pure IP networks take over from older trad bells with decrepid digital voice switches that can't be maintained anymore.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

And the first major carrier that went completely IP lives in ..... Canada.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[mrdaveb]

Dollars? backyards? cellphones?

I didn't know BT ran phone lines all the way across the atlantic. No wonder they aren't making any money!

:-)

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

BT operate huge trunk routes AND have a mobile phone network to run as well.

No they don't. MMO2 (Formally BT Cellnet) were divested from BT several years ago now, and operate as a totally seperate company. BT has nothing to do with MMO2's mobile network, beyond providing cross-switches and some backbone capacity.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

BT has clearly acknowledged that this is the only way to compete with the booming mobile phone industry is to go VoIP and following the American standard but because it's a new technology they don't have to say America was right.

Huh? Why on earth do you have to paint this as some sort of grudge against the USA? If the typical USA telco business model was so much better (others have pointed out that it isn't), then BT would be saying exactly that to their shareholders - proven business model and all that. It doesn't even make much sense to compare the USA and UK telco markets though; in the USA you have to deal with lots of rural areas, the UK is all quite closely packed together and the two regulatory systems are quite different.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[signifying nothing]

BT operate huge trunk routes AND have a mobile phone network to run as well.

No they don't.

Yes they do.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Anonymous Coward]

No they don't. BT Mobile is a re-branded service, just like Virgin Mobile or Tesco Mobile. BT Mobile do not operate their own network; they rebrand another operator.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Goth Biker Babe]

Hey I can't help it! I work with Americans and find myself using American rather than English when I'm around them.

Re:God Bless Flat Rates....

[Xrikcus]

And make the call in such that someone can call you back? I said calls TO mobiles are expensive, and given that people have them one may want to call them. Calls FROM mobiles are cheap as chips.

Zowee!

[jandersen]

Wow, this is radical stuff. Almost as good as Skype, but without the hassle of simply clicking and talking.... ;-)

Re:Zowee!

[Ummu]

Look at how many customers AOL has, and you'll understand how radical this may seem to the common American family.

Re:Zowee!

[judgecorp]

If you want it in Skype terms, it's one month's free Skype Out. According to the BBBC page, it's free calls to anywhere in the UK, ie not just net calls.

and they lost most of their customer base here

[DarkTempes]

Minimum requirements -Microsoft Windows 98/Windows 2000/Windows Millennium/Windows XP operating system (XP recommended) -Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later not so sure about the latter, because i bet it just requires flash and so would work in firefox. but it probably doesn't work in linux since it specifies: Please note that BT Communicator is not Mac compatible. All in all, how many windows users want to use something possibly IE-based so that they can talk to hardlines and such for free?

Re:and they lost most of their customer base here

[bastardsquadmuzz]

It's not IE-based. BT are currently working very closely with Yahoo!, and the BT Communicator is basically Yahoo! Messenger with the ability to dial telephones.

Re:and they lost most of their customer base here

[maharg]

it actually installs under wine on RH9 - at one point it displays a dialog along the lines of "you don't have IE and you don't have the correct windows something or other.." and gives a choice of pressing Yes or No. If you choose Yes, the installer exits, but if you choose No, the installer continues and offers you Typical or Custom !! Classic !!! Unfortunately, none of the exes do very much once started...

BitTorrent?

[RasendeRutje]

Telephone calls via BitTorrent???

Re:BitTorrent?

[RasendeRutje]

Bram Cohen sure has been busy!

Re:BitTorrent?

[CdBee]

well why not?: Most of the time in a phone call, you call someone knowing what you want to say then have to negotiate the conversation around them to get to your point.

Much simpler to just make an mp3 file of your point of view, send it and await their considered reply....

Re:BitTorrent?

[rozz]

Telephone calls via BitTorrent???

AFAIK, Skype works (approx) that way already

Re:BitTorrent?

[Ummu]

WHAT? So our calls are happily sent across the country through random strangers?

Great. Now I'll have to use personal codewords again. Makes plotting world domination HARD, ya know?

Re:BitTorrent?

[reverius]

"So our calls are happily sent across the country through random strangers?"

Actually, that's true.

Skype's NAT traversal works by using a non-firewalled 3rd party... which means (in real terms) anyone running Skype who is not firewalled is a candidate to act as a "server" for the two firewalled people talking. I assume these servers are chosen randomly among Skype users, or are those with the best bandwidth / least latency.

Re:BitTorrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, almost all the time, third party computers are only used for call setup. It's called "UDP hole punching". The data flows directly between the call participants.

Re:BitTorrent?

[mrchaotica]

I don't know; I think I prefer phone calls (or IM). The issue with your idea (or a Slashdot post, for that matter) is that you have to compose your entire argument at once, and with no feedback. I would rather know if I need to clarify some details before I get to my conclusions.

You might be good enough at extemporaneous speaking to record an mp3 in one go, but I can't. I would have to at least think about, and probably write down, what I want to say before I record, lest I sound like a bumbling fool. It's much easier to compose one sentence at a time rather than trying to either do so instantly as you're speaking or memorizing it (if only temporarily) before hand.

Of course, although I like to think before I talk (or write) I'm sure there's plenty of people right here on Slashdot who have no problem with spouting the first thing that pops into their heads. : D

Re:BitTorrent?

[CdBee]

touché :-p

Re:BitTorrent?

[mko]

This may indeed be true most of the time, but as an admin in a students dorm with strict traffic limits I have firsthand experience with Skype users causing a lot of traffic, presumably because they are acting as a relay. They usually don't know about this "feature", of course.

Re:BitTorrent?

[mrchaotica]

Actually, I didn't mean to imply that you were one; I just thought my post was wordy enough as it is and hoped you wouldn't notice.

Re:BitTorrent?

[fuzzybunny]

WHAT? So our calls are happily sent across the country through random strangers?

No, only when you call tech support. And Pakistan isn't technically "across the country".

Re:BitTorrent?

[displaced80]

Wouldn't that end up as Chinese Whispers? :-)

Re:BitTorrent?

[NeoSkandranon]

No, you are not the only person to have that thought

Re:BitTorrent?

[n3tfury]

you have more time on your hands than the average person.

What a bunch of idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone can make VoIP or video conferencing calls using NetMeeting for the past 6 years for free if they were using broadband. There are many other software packages that do the same thing.

Why would a broadband company try to charge extra for VoIP when they are already charging for the connectivity?

It makes no sense!

Re:What a bunch of idiots

[bairy]

It makes marketing sense. BT know full well it's possible to do this already but they also know that a lot of people will believe hype and a lot more people like 'free things' and they also also know that people won't bother checking if they can currently do this, so if people fall for it, which some will, it's basically a win-for-them situation.

Re:skype already offers free telephone calls onlin

[slarshdot]

coz its free to land lines

Dont trust them.

[skinfitz]

BT are lying theiving scum that have exploited the British public with their monopoly for years. This is an obvious gimmick (that will fail) to attempt to steal customers from other broadband providers.

Their ADSL service is fine up until layer 3, at which point it becomes crap. Their web service will only let you download two simultaneous files, and given half a chance they will cap your downloads. Service is unreliable. I have several remote sites using VPN's - one uses BT at the moment, and VPN is up and down like a yoyo.

If you want broadband in the UK and you live in an area where you can get cable, use Telewest (I have a 3Mb line which is 1Mb faster than the fastest BT offering) or if you can't get cable and can only have ADSL, use Demon.

Oh and don't use BT for regular telephone lines - they are overpriced.

In fact, don't use them for anything.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Lehk228]

Their web service will only let you download two simultaneous files

wtf that's pretty weird, shit any money saved by that has got to be eaten up by the equipment, maintanence, and electrical cost of the extra hardware to sit there sniffing for http downloads. are you sure it isn't the standard browser limitation of 3 connections per server (one usually reserved for downloading pages/embedded files, the other two used for embedded or file downloads)

Re:Dont trust them.

[FireFury03]

if you can't get cable and can only have ADSL, use Demon.

I have found DSL to be much more reliable than (NTL) cable, although it is true that trusting BT to do the ISP side of things is a very bad idea (they seem just as clueless as NTL). I used to use Demon for my dialup, but when I switched to DSL a couple of years back their network was in pieces and was generally quite flakey so I moved to PlusNet who have done a excellent job of running a very stable DSL line. I think it's gone down a total of twice in 2 years - once was a very short outage caused by an equipment failure at PlusNet and the other was about 4 or 5 hours which was BT's fault (and also took out most of the DSL lines in the South-East of the UK).

Admittedly I only use them for the connection, I run all the services (mail, DNS, etc) myself because I frankly don't trust any consumer ISPs to know as much as me about networking.

I have also heard good things about Bogons if you want an ISP with a clue and they're aparantly happy to do almost anything with a DSL line (moving portable IP addresses onto it, multi-channel bonding, etc).

Re:Dont trust them.

[Xrikcus]

Ok, except that BT's service is considerably better than Telewest or NTL, and other ISPs (Eclipse, Nildram) etc are used by any techie types, noone technical really uses BT for ADSL afterall, it's for the normal people.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mention that telewest broadband is 50% faster that BT for all broadband services(750k compaired to 512k etc) unfortunatly telewest only give you 128k upload speed with their 750k service.

Even on their 3meg line they give us only 256k upload. In relation to US services a 3meg/256k line costs £50 which is about $90 I belive.

Re:Dont trust them.

[RJabelman]

> In fact, don't use them for anything.

Sadly, if you want ADSL, you don't have a choice. I really resent having to pay ~ £15 a month to BT for a phoneline I don't use, just so I can have ADSL.

Re:Dont trust them.

[ibentmywookie]

Sounds like Telstra.

Is this what happens to all government run companies that go private?

Somebody in the Sydney morning herald gave them an earful here.

Re:Dont trust them.

[ibentmywookie]

Even on their 3meg line they give us only 256k upload. In relation to US services a 3meg/256k line costs £50 which is about $90 I belive.

We pay $99AUD (about $75USD) for 1.5Mb ADSL here in Australia. Stop complaining :)

Re:Dont trust them.

[bairy]

BT are lying theiving scum that have exploited the British public with their monopoly for years.

Their ADSL service is fine up until layer 3, at which point it becomes crap

I absolutely agree. I don't know what layer 3 is to be honest however my old job had ISDN 64k and then BT Broadband 512k. They charged £80 a month(!) for the 512k and it would hang on for about 20 mins then die, and even when hanging on the datarate was appaling, listening to even low bw radio was just dire.

It frequently needed a router (modem) reboot.. repeat for several times during the day.

Even the 64k managed to fall off several times a day - and not the idle-cutoff, it would just die at random intervals.

BT's adverts stating they are "reliable" are just bollocks. And this isn't a one off either, I know a guy who's signed up for BT (no idea why) and he keeps getting cutoff at random.

There are loads of alternatives out there, telewest is good but as stated the upload is low. I personally use Zen internet, it's a little more expensive than the rest (but you get a gig of webspace) and I can stay on 24 hours and get 5 gig a day every day. I believe plusnet and others are good too.

But seriously, stay away from BT, you might get free calls but you'll pay for em in service.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and don't use BT for regular telephone lines - they are overpriced.

You get what you pay for. I've recently switched our landline to BT from Telewest. Telewest couldn't keep the line working for more than two weeks at a time; we'd pick the phone up to find no dialtone. They'd take anything between two to four days to fix the fucking thing (Longer if we discovered the fault on a Friday evening. Can't have an engineer work a weekend now can we?) Their attempt to customer service was laughable; £10 credit was the best we managed, most of the time it was less or nothing at all. They blamed everything from BT ("Oh your line is cross-connected at a BT exchange. An engineer probably pulled your line out!") to kids ("Oh the box was open and kids have pulled the wires out. You're not the only one.") Finally we gave up in disgust. The only helpful person I spoke to at Telewest was the women who put in the disconnect order, when Telewest wanted to try and charge us for the full 12 month contract (Like fuck. Who broke the contract first? Not me.)

Oh and now we also pay and extra fiver on the cable TV and Cable Modem because Telewest bundle everything together and punish you if you don't want their crappy phone service.

Re:Dont trust them.

[uglyduckling]

I haven't found their ADSL to be as bad as that, but one thing I'm sure of - their customer service sucks. Five years ago I ran IT for an organisation, and we were the first business customer for ADSL in our postcode area. You would think they would have looked after us but they didn't. I remember calling once when the service went down, and had a conversation along these lines:

Me: the router isn't connecting and says authentication error
Tech: can you please restart the router
Me: I've done that and it doesn't make any difference
Tech: please try now
Me: [does it] ok no difference
Tech: ok, please reboot your computer
Me: but the router hasn't connected, how will that help?
Tech: let's just try it
Me: ok but your router is the otherside of a firewall and proxy server so rebooting my workstation is completely pointless
Tech: ok, reboot the computer that is attached to the router
Me: I can't do that because it's a server
Tech: why not?
Me: because the 30 staff currently using it for file store will scream at me when they lose their connection and possibly their data
Tech: ok, reboot your computer
Me: *sigh* [reboots workstation]...the router still isn't connecting
Tech: ok, it looks like your password has been changed
Me: ok, why?
Tech: I don't know, it happens sometimes
Me: can you please reset it?
Tech: no
Me: why not?
Tech: the person who does that is out of the office
Me: !"£%£&% is there only one person who can do that?
Tech: yes
Me: so in the whole of BT, there's only one person who can reset an ADSL password?
Tech: yes
Me: you're sure
Tech: yes
Me: what happens if they get run over by a bus - what will you do then?
Tech: umm... hang on... [puts me on hold] ... ... ... ok we can reset that password
Me: thankyou

I kid you not - this is the conversation as well as I can remember it from five years ago. Sad but true. Other encounters with them have not been much better.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me you didn't actually reboot your workstation? You know they can't see what you're doing over a phone; you just have to tell them "Yes", "No" and "Done that" at the right times until you get to the useful bit of the script (Usually the bit that goes "I'll put you through to level 2..")

Re:Dont trust them.

[fuzzybunny]

This is almost as good as a mail from BT tech support I saw pasted into an IRC channel a few years ago.

The guy was trying to get a DSL card working with a Slackware box. BT: "the internet doesn't support linux".

*groan*

Re:Dont trust them.

[jimicus]

BT are lying theiving scum that have exploited the British public with their monopoly for years

Don't hold back, skinfitz. Tell us what you really think.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Jamesie]

Does anyone happen to know if you get Demon or any non BT ADSL can you keep the BT line?

Re:Dont trust them.

[jez9999]

I don't understand people who whinge about the rental cost of their landline, because they don't use it for calls. You're not being charged for calls - if you sign up with a no-frills package, that rental is going towards *maintainance* (it's not that cheap to run a national phone network, you know) and, yes, some profit for BT (they're a company in a capitalist economy). You think your copper phoneline, which is obviously REQUIRED for DSL, should be provided to you for free?

Re:Dont trust them.

[jez9999]

Yep - I'm in the process of migrating back to Zen Internet right now (down to £25/mo for reliable, uncapped 512kbps ADSL!), but you make the slight mistake of confusing BT with BT Openworld. BT have a dept called BT Wholesale - they're fine, and provide you with the connectivity you use to connect to ISPs like Zen. BT Openworld are the ISP branch of BT, and they suck. :-)

Re:Dont trust them.

[lga]

Does anyone happen to know if you get Demon or any non BT ADSL can you keep the BT line?
There's no such thing* as non-BT ADSL in the UK, if you get Demon or some other ADSL, it's really BT ADSL with the Demon name on it, and you still have to pay BT for the phone line.

*It is now possible to pay Bullldog for your phone line and your DSL without paying BT in a very limited number of places, but it is still sort of BT, since Bulldog has to put their equipment in a BT exchange and pay BT rental for the line and for a connection into the network...

Re:Dont trust them.

[pagaman]

I've just moved into a new place, and the first thing I did was order cable (telewest). Of course I needed a nice connection to the internet, so I got that as well. I didn't know what I had to do to get cable to work under linux, (I had a speedtouch USB ADSL modem in my previous place). So I thought I would just check that my connection would be dhcp based....nice & easy. Me: Is the IP & network info set via DHCP? Woman: errrr....let me just check..... Woman:We only do static IP addresses for business customers Me: Never mind...

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed on all fronts. I dropped BT in business ans at home six years ago and have *never* looked back. I can also vouch for Telewest being very good. i have a 2Mbit line here which has gone down only once in four years, and that was because builders put a pick axe through the line outside.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

FWIW, it just took me 5 minutes of talking to one of their staff [FX: call centre, Indian accents] just to cancel my old dial-up account. They wanted all sorts of background information about why I was cancelling, but I think they got bored after something like "unreliable service, cuts me off randomly, you changed the Ts & Cs unacceptably since I signed up, capped hours on-line in an 'unmetered' service, your web site doesn't work properly with non-IE browsers, your web server is configured incorrectly so my web site doesn't work properly with non-IE browsers either in spite of my making a simpler request to your admins to send correct MIME type info months ago..."

BTW, if you are in a similar position, never tell them you're moving to ADSL. They'll hassle you for everything you could possibly tell them about which ISP you're moving to, yada yada.

And the bastards still had the nerve to charge me for this month's direct debit even after I'd cancelled... One stroppy letter coming up.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Biomechanical]

The copper is required, but if you read about about the technicalities of DSL then you see that your phone line can be "dry" or "dead".

From http://tldp.org - DSL-Howto (Section 2.3: Wiring/Installation Options):

* Dedicated Line. Some DSLs require a dedicated, or "dry", wire pair, e.g. IDSL. This means a separate, physical line without dial-tone for DSL and Internet connectivity. Also, DSL services from CLECs (independent telcos like Covad), may use a dedicated line, depending on their line sharing agreement with the local incumbent carrier. (Instead the CLEC will actually lease a loop from the ILEC.) On your end, this simply means using one of the unused wire pairs in the telco wire bundle, and connecting it to the DSL jack.

I've seen this myself with my own DSL connection when my phone line was "dead" for half a day. No dialtone, no incoming or outgoing calls, but I had DSL.

Maybe we shouldn't have a dry or dead line for free - after all, it is held for you and you still use the DSLAM - but if you're not using the POTS system for calls, I don't think you should pay the same rental as someone actually making phone calls.

Re:Dont trust them.

[FuzzieNorn]

Bulldog (well, C&W now) are not the only people doing LLU rollouts; Demon do it too, as well as several other ISPs.

Also, Kingston Communications does UK DSL which doesn't involve BT in any way. Admittedly only in their telco area, but still. :)

Re:Dont trust them.

[Anonymous Coward]

This may have been true of BT in the past but I think you'll find things have changed. I currently use BT for my broadband service and have no complaints what so ever regarding quality of service.

In fact, the only time that I've had a problem with the service, (which turned out to be a defective router - not supplied by BT), was over the New Year period 11 months ago. BT's engineer's would not leave me alone until they got to the bottom of the fault, (this involved them calling me twice on New Year's day!). Very good service indeed. When they discovered that the fault was nothing to do with them they were happy to leave it at that and they charged me nothing for the inconvenience.

Re:Dont trust them.

[uglyduckling]

By then I had lost all will to live - I didn't bother mentioning the 20 minutes on hold listening to their corporate whooshy music that's on an endless loop and is actually only about 15 seconds long. If he'd asked me to stick my big toe up my right nostril and jump up and down on the other foot I think I would have done it at that point.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Jamesie]

Yes I understand that the hardware is all BT, I just wanted to find out if I can keep my BT phone account rather than have to transfer to another 'provider'.
Thanks for the answer though, I thought as much.

Re:Dont trust them.

[lga]

Ah, I see. Some more details then.

The normal way to do things, is you would rent your line from BT (They now force you to take one of their BT together options for between 10.50 and 25.50 pounds per month) and then you would pay an ISP for your ADSL. BT could also be your ISP, but it would be a separate payment, so you would pay one part of BT for the line rental and another part for the internet. On top of that, you can choose to pay someone else for your phone calls, and you can choose to route some of your calls to them by dialing a code before each call, or all of your calls by setting your provider at the exchange with CPS (but your rental still goes to BT.)

Some companies like Onetel now offer a deal where you pay them for a package of cheap calls via CPS and internet with ADSL at the same time, but aren't too sharp at pointing out that you still have to pay line rental to BT.

Other companies like Bulldog can rent you the line, the ADSL, and charge you for calls all at once although you then lose the ability to pick and chose your ADSL provider and your calls provider like you can if you rent your line from BT.

Re:Dont trust them.

[Jamesie]

Thanks, that's cleared a few things up for me.

Do you (or anyone else reading this) know anything about ADSL WIFI routers?
I am interested in connecting 4 pcs up, 1 desktop by cable and the other 3 by WIFI. I already have a netgear pcmcia card for the laptop and a netgear card in the back of one of the pc's (both 54Mbps) but I have read a lot of critiscism of netgear recently and am not sure which router to get.

Re:Dont trust them.

[smoker2]

Their web service will only let you download two simultaneous files

Funny, I can download more things at once than that on BT broadband.

I wonder if you're using firefox/mozilla ?

If so, type about:config into the address bar and enter max in the filter bar.

See anything with 2 as the value ? Try changing it and then restart the browser.

less FUD please.

Oh, BTW, just to check, I had Opera dloading 12 files simultaneously, when firefox stuck at 2.

Free phone in France

[misterbozo]

We have free national house-to-house VoIP phone for about a year or so in France. And you don't have to use your computer: just plug your phone in the 'Freebox' given with your Free.fr subscription. You also get broadband internet (up to 15 mbits in some areas) and TV (not everywhere), all for 30 euros/month. For once that France isn't years behind technologically, I thought I'd mention it...

Re:Free phone in France

[Anonymous Coward]

You should also mention the fact that their customer support is crap. I didn't have to deal with them yet, but I fear the day my connection will decide to stop working.

It's probably not a free.fr only problem though, as I heard some bad stories with other french providers. I really hope that they will learn some day to respect their customers (like they do in Japan for instance, but we already know that in Japan everything is possible).

Re:Free phone in France

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

i was surprised to learn that france had their version of a free interconnected network for a long time now....

Re:Free phone in France

[isorox]

You also get broadband internet (up to 15 mbits in some areas)

Not broadband minitel?

Re:Free phone in France

[julesh]

What I don't get is that you need to be a BT Together customer for this. BT Together customers (such as myself) already get free calls to geographic numbers (ie. those that start 01 or 02).

So, what would be the benefit of this for me?

Re:Free phone in France

[lga]

Actually, all BT customers can benefit from this.

People on BT together option 1 can save 3p per minute in the daytime and 5.5p per call off peak by making calls through BT communicator.

People on option 2 get free evening and weekend calls, but can still save 3p per minute by making their daytime calls through BT communicator.

People on option 3 get all their calls to landlines included, but they can save 15 pounds per month by dropping their line rental and making all their calls to landlines through BT communicator.

But it's already free...

[stephanruby]

But it's already free if you have broadband.

What's next? Free web access if you pay for broadband. Free email if you pay for broadband. Free virus protection if you pay for broadband.

Might as well go wild and give free access to Slashdot.

Re:But it's already free...

[sifi]

Yes it's free to call other internet phones, but this is free calls to other regular phones.

Oh except - the free calls do not include calls to mobiles, non-geographical numbers such as 0870, premium numbers or international numbers.

Re:But it's already free...

[minioak]

If you read the blurb, its free calls for the first month, and then they are charged at your normal BT rate...

How is this any different from having ADSL, and picking up the phone?

Re:But it's already free...

[lga]

its free calls for the first month,

How do you work that one out? The 31st of January 2006 is well over a year away.

Re:But it's already free...

[minioak]

Its on the "How much does it cost" page on the BT site: Here is summary of the different features available and a brief overview of costs. Free Download Free UK* Calls for the first month and then afterwards, the standard price is: Call charges from your PC will be the same as those from your BT landline and will be dependent upon your current call option.

Re:But it's already free...

[lga]

That isn't the deal that this news story is about, you are just look at the standard BT communicator package. Have a look at the bt.com front page, it's advertising a deal where you get free calls for more than a year if you take a certain broadband package.

Re:But it's already free...

[glesga_kiss]

But it's already free if you have broadband.

Sigh. I guess no one actually read the article. I saw it myself before it was on slashdot. From the article

BT has launched the promotion to show off the potential of a broadband connection to customers.

So, basically this is a trial to get people using their service, where after some point, they start to charge for it. And as BT makes money off the old telephone system that will be replaced by VOIP in 10-20 years. They are seeing the way the market is going, and are wanting a piece of it.

However, there will always be open and free VOIP alternatives, so I guess their market can only be those unaware of the alternatives.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if VOIP got taxed soon, with criminal offences levied out at those who try to avoid paying, using encryption etc. And as the government would ban encryption if it could get away with it, it means efforts to ensure wire-tapping access to VOIP networks are no longer required.

MS only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just so you don't have to go down a whole thread, the requirements are listed below.

In short, Windoze only, and needs Internet Exploder and Flash as well. So tough if you're using any kind of alternatives with, say, a better security record.

Thanks BT, but not very much.

Minimum requirements
Multimedia PC with 700MHz processor or faster *
Microsoft Windows 98/Windows 2000/Windows Millennium/Windows XP operating system (XP recommended)
Minimum 128MB RAM (256MB recommended)

256-color VGA or higher resolution graphics card (SVGA recommended)
Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.01 or later
Macromedia Flash version 5.0.25 or later (Flash version 6+ recommended).

Re:MS only...

[bairy]

I always love requirements like this:

Multimedia PC with 700MHz processor or faster
256-color VGA or higher resolution graphics card

If there's anyone these days using a 16 colour display for general pc and net usage, they should be shot... exactly, everyone has.. which kinda makes you wonder, why put in such a stupid line

Re:MS only...

[jimicus]

It gives them an easy get out, thus:

Tech: "Does your computer have a VGA card running in at least 256 colours?"
Customer: "WTF? How on Earth should I know?"
Tech: "Sorry, unless you can confirm it does, we cannot support you. Goodbye."

Re:MS only...

[gilesjuk]

I'm sure they don't have many Linux using customers. Anyone with a clue about OSes will also have a clue about ISPs.

This type of thing is here!

[ImaLamer]

Right here in Cincinnati, Ohio a cable company (no names) has hired and trained installation and support personell for a VoIP roll out. They plan on offering unlimited service to those who are more than delighted with their digital cable and *oad *unner Internet service.

Considering the amount of low key recruiting they did I'd say they plan on it working. They actually plan on kicking normal home phone service out of their homes completely.

Not bad for a city that is said to live twenty years behind the rest of the world.

Skype

[NerdENerd]

Skype is already free and works with many OSs and who you want to talk to doesn't have to be with BT. Seems pointless to me.

Re:Skype

[DarthBart]

When I can tie Skype into my home/homeoffice PBX, then I'll look at it.

Until then, I'm happy getting service from NuFone and letting Asterisk do all the work.

Limited = Stupid

[BortQ]

They shouldn't limit this to the first X customers. Why the hell not give it to everyone? Include it in the basic broadband service. They already have the data network in place, so it shouldn't really cost them too much.

Doing it for only the first X makes it just a gimmick. [spits]

Re:Limited = Stupid

[cmacmanus]

Do you understand the concept of bandwidth?

Re:Limited = Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand the concept of using the same broadband connection which the user is entitled to use anyway?

Re:Limited = Stupid

[Craster]

This is especially true given that their current advertising campaign is all about benefits for all their subscribers, not just new customers.

--
Craster

Re:Limited = Stupid

[1_interest_1]

It's a marketing gimmick, they are creating a sense of urgency.

It's all about perception, my friend.

Great service but...

[liquidMONKEY]

... doesn't Microsoft already have a patent on free VoIP?

Am I the only one...

[AlephNot]

...who read "BT" as "BitTorrent"? When I saw, "BT to Offer Free Internet Calls", I thought, "Wow! Voice over BitTorrent! What'll they think of next?"

Re:Am I the only one...

[Seraphim_72]

I did too...then I thought "Aww crap, all this technology just so I can come back to using a party line"

Sera

God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[WIAKywbfatw]

European telcos are losing money? Funny, because BT makes a profit of about £100 (~$190) every second. If that's what you call losing money then please help me lose some by donating all of yours to me right away.

And this crap is modded insightful? How sad.

Re:God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, because BT makes a profit of about £100 (~$190) every second.

£129,600,000 a year and dropping fast. If it would not for DSL this figure would be MUCH lower.

Re:God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[WIAKywbfatw]

It's dropped because they've spent money on acquisitions and on upgrading their infrastructure. Just last month they spent £1 billion (might have been $1 billion: I'm not that sure off the top of my head) on buying into the US market.

Re:God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[sgt101]

And this morning they reported a half year profit of £546 million - that equates to £1000 million per year or $1500 million.

See http://www.btplc.com/News/Articles/Showarticle.cfm ?ArticleID=18949ba8-e80d-40fc-8e0e-649e8a2a8388

Re:God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

that equates to £1000 million per year or $1500 million.

Where do you buy your dollars? I wish I could get them that cheap.

Re:God Bless ACs who are couldn't be more wrong...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Thanks for that, but you really need to get your £:$ conversions up to date.

The $ has tanked vs other currencies over the last year or so and it's at £1.00:$1.84 right now, and it's been weaker than that recently.

So £546 million for six months equates to £1,092 million per year, or $2,009 million.

And if we're talking about per second profits, that's £1,092,000,000/(365*24*60*60) or £1,092,000,000/31,536,000, which is £34 per second.

Like I said, they've shelled out a lot recently on acquisitions and other stuff, so a profit of £34 per second is hardly anything that they'll be crying about.

Holistic Detection

[Anonymous Coward]

"Damn and blast British Telecom," Dirk said, the words coming easily from force of habit.

BT will let me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... send UDP or RTP or RTSP packets through the Internet if I sign up ?

I should bloody well hope so.

I remember working at one company where we ordered a BT business ADSL line .... I had to phone them 3 times to get the password to access their ADSL router to start it up and endure sniggering adolescent tele-plonkers who seemed to think I was *mad* as a hatter for even trying to do it without using the free windows software (read browser page).

And then we discovered BT blocked *every* incoming port to the ADSL router. Very useful that was.

HOW-TO setup a soft-VPN system:
1) rent ADSL service from ISP that know's the f*ck what it's doing
2) connect penguin box
3) install, configure, start service
4) go for a cup of tea
5) fire twat who ordered BT ADSL Busy-being-idiots Service.

BT is an ISP?
My arse.

Re:BT will let me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

To join in as a me too, yes BT as an ISP are a pile of shit.
You cannot make email send with your own domain name, as they wont let you send mail without a bt domain name, and they wont let you connect to an SMTP server that isn't theirs.
You can apply to have your address added, but we couldn't get them to do it!
Solution: Call Nildram

samzenpus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I just drunk or did a /. editor change their login name? I have been reading /. for about 5 years now and I have never heard of "samzenpus", yet they appear to be user number 5.

I'm seriously not trolling, am I going mad?

Re:samzenpus?

[reactivo]

That's right, I'm sharing your drunkness. Who is this person? And also seems to be posting all the last news.

What's going on?

easy tiger

[wild_berry]

That was the good old days of 1993. The market has changed since then, and BT is no longer quite that profitable.

With a smile, I wonder why you didn't get modded flamebait.

Re:easy tiger

[benito27uk]

They're not doing too badly though, profits before exceptional items for the three months to 30 September rose 4% to £549m ($1.01bn), compared with £528m for the same period last year.

Re:easy tiger

[Ewan]

Yes, at £2billion a year profit, that's only, erm, £63 a second? My maths might be wrong though.

Re:easy tiger

[freakmn]

Looks right to me, unless there's a difference between metric and US billions...

deus ex machina?

[wild_berry]

Cellular calls between mobile networks were expensive until customers told the Office of Fair Trading, who investigated and told Ofcom (the phones and internet regulator) to force companies to lower prices. They have come down to a more reasonable price now, comparable to ordinary calls.

Re:deus ex machina?

[lga]

They have come down to a more reasonable price now, comparable to ordinary calls.

Er, no, they haven't. Ofcom investigated mobile termination fees, the fees that mobile networks charge other phone companies for calling them. Ofcom ordered them to cut prices, by 2005, so no prices have changed yet. Remember, these are fees that some phone companies charge other phone companies, so no prices that you or I pay have to change.

To directly quote from the Register article on the subject:

Vodafone and O2 must reduce average termination charges from around 8p a minute to 5.63p a minute, while T-Mobile and Orange must cut their charges from 9.5p to 6.31p a minute. All four must implement the cuts by March 2005.

Re:deus ex machina?

[Xrikcus]

Even that 9.5 to 6.31 is fairly irrelevent when calls to other mobile networks are usually in the region of 30p/min.

oh yes it does

[RMH101]

any major outage of any type usually downgrades cell phone performance. reason being, each cell can only handle a relatively small number of simultaneous connections, and at the first sign of anything odd happening those connections will all be used up by people phoning their friends to tell them about it. if you're ever unlucky enough to see an accident on a motorway, just try using your cellphone then.
handily, under GSM emergency calls are meant to get priority and disconnect plain voice calls, but this doesn't always work...

how to advertise for free.....

[phantomfive]

How to advertise for free to nearly a million potential customers: submit your company homepage as a story on slashdot.

To put it another way:

1. Create silly introductory offer.
2. Submit it as a breaking story to slashdot.
3. Get slashdotted.
4. PROFIT!!!!!!!!!

Re:how to advertise for free.....

[bairy]

Possibly, but the comments are varying between "you can do VOIP already, and BT is shit", so if that was the plan (and yes, I've seen the joke) then it's gonna backfire. Nerds know what they're talking about, hired people on tv adverts don't

Why use a PC headset?

[CdBee]

I fail to see why BT should use a headset and windows-based software when they already ship an ADSL Ethernet router with some of their internet services.

Surely a digital handset that plugs into an Ethernet port would be a much simpler option, as well as being completely OS-independent?

Wait a second...

[DJ Haruko]

You mean not only can I get trance and electronica from BT, but I can also get phone services? And he's written a program called BT Communicator for it? Wow, tallented man.

Re:Wait a second...

[gnoos]

Communicator was a little known release after Godspeed and actually featured Sasha.

Re:Wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Sasha did have a track called "Motorola" :)

Re:Wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

ROFL. I'm glad I'm not the only person who automatically thinks Brian Transeau instead of British Telecom. ;)

Avoid BT like the plague

[cruachan]

BT, together with their mobile subgroup O2 really are the worst company in the UK. I was ripped off by O2 on a mobile telephone bill to the tune of several hundred pounds and I know many others who have similar tales of woe. We also have an ISDN from BT themselves the service on which is truly dreadful.

Of all the corporates I've ever dealt with in the UK BT are by far and away the worst, and that includes the various rail companies. No other company comes close for their attitude of not giving a toss about their customers, indeed they are the only corporate I know which actively seems to go out of their way to treat their customers with contempt.

Avoid.

Re:Avoid BT like the plague

[Mwongozi]

Just so you know, BT no longer own O2. That doesn't mean O2 don't still suck, they do, but they're not the same company as BT.

Re:Avoid BT like the plague

[Loki2048]

At least o2's customer service get problems solved quickly, plus they use a national rate line even for pay and go customers - unlike Orange who keep you on hold, on a premium rate line, for an hour and a quarter (last time I had to phone them) and then take another 20 minutes to take care of a simple request (eg. enable GPRS for an account).

So while o2 may suck, they don't suck quite as badly as Orange do.

Re:Avoid BT like the plague

[jez9999]

I have to respectfully disagree - it's been quite a while since I had bad customer service from BT. Yeah, they used to be a ripoff but I think they're better now. That said, I never used O2 or BT Openworld, I suspect they're crap, but BT's basic landline service and customer support (very rarely needed) is fine...

Re:Avoid BT like the plague

[lga]

If you phone Orange on 150 from your Orange contract phone it's free. If you have a Pay as you go phone, it's a one off charge of 25p to talk to them on 450. I admit the waiting sucks, but Orange don't have a premium rate line.

You will also find a lot more intelligence at the Data help desk on 156 than from the standard customer services drones.

Yeh?

[Kanasta]

Anyone with BB can do free internet telephone calls anyway. What's the biggie? Plus it's only 1month? Hah. try again.

We will lock you in..

[mattr]

for free!

(after the monthly bill of course with its submarined things in there)

Why mess around with the other free guys and use free software for free internet telephony on free free, why be open when you can be closed, why pay when you can be free? No, why be free when you can pay. Why? Because free. And we will go out of business shortly. Thanks for staying on the line.. someone please hang up the phone? It's free!

What?? Microsoft Whores?

[The MESMERIC]

BT are Internet Exploder Pricks
Microsoft Whores
alt-OS's Unfriendly

Well British Telecrap Limited
I reckon its time I change my landline
Just out of principle.

ENOUGH of MicroSHIT Bias.

Valve :: Die

Re:skype already offers free telephone calls onlin

[Anonymous Coward]

BT

BRITISH Telecom

NOT American telecom, BRITISH

Skype already offers free telephone calls... in AMERICA

not BRITAIN

Stop being so damn US centric

Internet connection

[lazy_playboy]

So... can I connect a modem over this to use a dial-up internet connection? oh wait...

PAY for VOIP?

[tod_miller]

Sorry, but this market is self deprecating.

Unless they somehow sabotage world networks, all voice traffic can easily squeeze in right next to the bittorrent traffic.

Pay for VOIP? Are you mad! I hope they don;t try and neuter DSL connection in the future to stop voice calls, one day, everyone will have a compatible voice software, and I think it will be within 4 years.

4 years telcos. Wise up.

The most pointless thing i've ever seen.

[Dr.Knackerator]

After the free period, the pricing is the same as your standard BT landline costs.

To have BT Broadband you must have a BT Landline

I have a walkabout phone for round the house so i can be in any room, in the garden, garage etc. But my PC is tied to the wall. Even if you had a laptop do you really want to lug that around?

So I pay the same for a net call and get less 'features' than my landline. Sounds like a bargain!

Re:The most pointless thing i've ever seen.

[shplorb]

Get yourself an ATA then (Analogue Telephone Adaptor). They're simply little boxes that you plug your existing non-IP phone into to turn it into an IP-phone. Quite snazzy little things and they're what's going to make VoIP boom.

Re:The most pointless thing i've ever seen.

[Dr.Knackerator]

did you miss the part saying that the calls were the same price from a standard phone? you can't have bt broadband without a bt landline (paying full standing charge every quarter).

Why would I want to feck about with IP? It doesn't offer me any useful additional features. It would use the broadband bandwidth I already pay for, my wireless bandwidth, disk space, cpu, cause my machine to start up slower, having to feck about unpluggin my headphones/speakers to put in a headset... or i can spend £30 on a phone i can walk about the house with.

make the calls 1/5th of the normal cost, im interested. otherwise basically I'm *paying* for a technological solution to a non existant problem.

Re:The most pointless thing i've ever seen.

[shplorb]

did you miss the part saying that the calls were the same price from a standard phone? you can't have bt broadband without a bt landline (paying full standing charge every quarter).

What about calling other people with IP phones? That's free. If all your friends have broadband why not?

Why would I want to feck about with IP? It doesn't offer me any useful additional features. It would use the broadband bandwidth I already pay for, my wireless bandwidth, disk space, cpu, cause my machine to start up slower, having to feck about unpluggin my headphones/speakers to put in a headset... or i can spend £30 on a phone i can walk about the house with

If you use an IP phone or ATA with your cordless then you won't have to fuck with plugging and unplugging headphones/speakers or headsets because you won't have to use your computer for it. Plus you don't have to use BT as your VoIP provider, there's others out there that I'd reckon would have better rates.

Re:Avoid BT like the plague - O2 is not BT

[joelethan]

O2 is not owned by O2. They sold this for a decent profit. O2 seems to have been improving since that time (strange that).

BT now have BT Mobile, having gone out of the market once.

This could all look like typical BT anti-competitiveness, but surely it can't be? ;-)

Just see the way that BT Wholesale is the dominant DSL trunk carrier. Most UK ISPs have to buy this wholesale product and get their retail price squeezed by BT's retail product.

Welcome to the monolith that is BT!

/joelethan
-- Why is there only one Monopolies commission?

Out of the goodness of their own heart.. NOT!

[cluke]

Yeah, BT are really altruistic giving all this stuff away for free. Or not.

First I heard of this was when I was prompted to 'upgrade' my version of Yahoo Messenger to the U.K. version (sponsored by BT, there name was all over it). It nagged me everytime at start-up, so off I go and click Yes.
Turns out the new version is just like the old version, except with all chatrooms and voice chatrooms *removed*. (Apparently Lycos UK have carved these up into a separate enterprise, some sort of godawful web-based "U Come here to flirt! A/S/L! Kisses! Love online" 'service')

But there is one extra button to make up for this. It is "BT Communicator". Make voice calls over the internet to a normal phone! If you are on BT interent. I am not.
But it is free!

FOR THE FIRST MONTH ONLY.

All it is, is some trial offer trying to hook you in so you can be charged at a later date. So beware!

Re:Out of the goodness of their own heart.. NOT!

[lga]

Pay attention. This story is about the fact that if you sign up for BT broadband they will give you those free calls for more than a year.

2nd quarter, not half year...

[WIAKywbfatw]

Oh, I've just seen that the £549 million was for the second quarter, not for half a year, so you can double the figures I've just calculated.

£68 profit per second: they're hardly "losing money" like the AC that I originally replied to was suggesting.

Telewest are actually very good.

[alistair]

Are BT better than Telewest? I doubt it. I have had a Telewest connection for almost 2 years now and have nothing but good things to say about it. I bought a 1Mb connection, about a year ago this upgraded this to 1.5Mb for the same monthly charge. The installers came on time and did a very professional job, all rigged up in under half an hour including a very good job of cable laying to my PC cupboard and making good.

I have only noticed one 20 minute outage in the time I have had the service. Their customer support and billing have also been very good. I have a number of other friends who use them in London and they all have had good service. By contrast I have heard some real horror stories about BT....

For all the people asking "so what?"

[lga]

There's a large number of posts further up this discussion just not getting it. Here is my summary of what is different about this:

BT communicator is just Yahoo messenger with VoIP software in it, that's nothing new. BT offers a gateway to the real phone network that they have been charging to the customers household phone bill at standard rates. That's nothing new either.

What is new here and news worthy is that BT is giving away FREE PHONE CALLS TO THE REAL PHONE NETWORK from the VoIP phone until the 31st January 2006. That is what makes this story interesting.

Steve.

NTL are better than BT

[JayTeeUK]

In NTL's defence, I switched over from BT three years ago thanks to their complete incompetence and several spurious charges that they held us responsible for. When I eventually decided to go for broadband a year later, I was pretty much forced to go with NTL as Demon (my dial-up ISP at the time) only dealt with BT lines. I've had two internet outages since, both related to the set-top box.

Their customer service has been excellent every time we've called them. We lost interactive TV for a couple of days once, so we phoned and had an engineer at the house the same day. He was there for half an hour, did some tests, fitted a new attenuator, our interactive service came back. Half an hour after he'd gone, Customer Services called us back to make sure everything was still OK.

Our STB completely died on another occasion. This time the engineer only arrived the following day, but he had a new STB with him (a newer model), wasn't there more than 20 minutes and left me with an instruction sheet for re-registering my MAC address with the STB.

People slate NTL, but I've found them to be excellent.

Re:NTL are better than BT

[FireFury03]

When I eventually decided to go for broadband a year later, I was pretty much forced to go with NTL as Demon (my dial-up ISP at the time) only dealt with BT lines.

Using BT lines isn't as bad as you might think - they generally run the DSL network itself quite well, it's just that the ISP site is useless. So if you use another ISP over the BT DSL line you don't have to put up with it. I would *never* advise getting the actual ISP services off BT since they really are clueless.

Their customer service has been excellent every time we've called them.

It must've improved massively since I left NTL then - I used to have to hang on the phone for anywhere between 45 minutes and 90 minutes before my call was answered... and then there was porbably a 25% chance of them just hanging up your call immediately.

Basically, around August 2000 I ordered phone and TV off NTL - there were no digital services in the area at the time, but they would "be available in November 2000" and I would get a free upgrade. The previous owner of my home had had NTL but it was disconnected (so the cables were all in) but they couldn't schedule an installation immediately so I had to wait about 6 weeks.

Eventually the engineer appeared, connected the TV up, which worked right away and then told me he needed to go connect the phone line at the multiplexor... he never returned so eventually I phoned customer support (waited an hour on the phone) and asked what the hell was going on... I was told there were no free connections in the multiplexor and it needed to be upgraded... this would happen in about 3 months.

Now, 1. they could've checked this in the 6 weeks before the engineer was due to show up, and 2. the engineer could've actually told me himself instead of just vanishing without a trace.

Anyway, eventually I got my phone line connected. By the start of 2003 there was still no digital in the area (so no digital TV, no cable modems) so I gave up and dropped NTL, replacing it with Sky Digital for the TV, BT for phone and PlusNet for DSL - I haven't looked back.

This last summer, NTL came knocking on doors asking people if they wanted to sign up for their "new" digital services (so only 4 years late - I doubt they got many takers since most people would've got DSL ages ago, especially since NTL were more expensive for internet connections).

The salesman asked me what type of internet connection I currently have and I replied "DSL"... he looked at me blankly and said "is that dialup?"... so I told him what I thought of NTL, especially since he didn't even know about the only competing technology to their own cable modem services.

Many of the people I deal with in the course of my business have similarly bad things to say about NTL... infact its very rare that I hear anyone saying anything good about them (including my friends who work for NTL).

Re:NTL are better than BT

[glesga_kiss]

Using BT lines isn't as bad as you might think [snip]

No, it's worse. In order to get DSL from any ISP in the UK, you need to have a BT phone line. I don't have a BT phone line, nor do I want one. So, I am stuck with NTL cable. Who have been pretty reliable, it has to be said.

I used to have to hang on the phone for anywhere between 45 minutes and 90 minutes before my call was answered

Yeah, seen that myself, but not recently. The solution is the same as any other busy call-centre; don't call during the busy periods. For example, if you want to pay your council tax over the phone in Glasgow, you have to phone before 10 am to stand a chance of actually speaking to someone!

Re:NTL are better than BT

[I confirm I'm not a]

>>I used to have to hang on the phone for anywhere between 45 minutes and 90 minutes before my call was answered

>Yeah, seen that myself, but not recently.

I can't say I've had this sort of problem with NTL, but it's been a while (1999?) since I was last with them. However, it's precisely this sort of behaviour - from BT - that means I'll avoid BT whereever I can. Unfortunately, since 1999 I've only lived in areas where there's no cable.

Privatisation is a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

It is good to remember:

"When someone privatises your sector, make sure the regulator is a bureaucratic half assed wuss!!!" - Somebody

(Also see rail companies and ticket prices)

BT to Offer Free Internet Calls..

[Anonymous Coward]

..to telemarketing firms.

And they'll make their money when you have to use the phone to call and complain. :) <-- This means it's a JOKE.

It's Only Free For The First Month

[Junior Samples]

Big Deal! It's just a sign-up promotion.

LLU

[lga]

Yes, I was a bit too simplistic in my summary. LLU is starting to take off, and is available from several companies now, but still only in a very limited number of places. (By which I mean not where I live, of course!) The deal with Cable and Wireless buying Bulldog to roll it out further affield looks quite promising.

I have been frequently checking the Homechoice website to see when I can get unbundled broadband with video on demand but it's still only in London. :-(

Re:LLU

[FuzzieNorn]

I'd stay the hell away from Homechoice right now, even if you were somewhere it was available. I know two people who have it, and they're getting dialup-type speeds from it at present .. looking around forums, it seems like a lot of people are getting that, at a guess their IP network is waaay overloaded, because the video portion of it is fine (so it's obviously not line issues).

VoIP services

[Doc Ruby]

Is it going to take another "MCI vs ATT" type monopoly lawsuit to get these emerging VoIP telcos to open their services to niche players? Otherwise their end-to-end service model closes the market to everyone who isn't providing the bundle. Voipcos might outsource some services, like voicemail and bill processing, on the back end, but their monopoly will control the consumer market, though they benefit from a more competitive supplier market. With "prosumer" roles so abundant in the VoIP architecture, their gain is everyone else's loss.

Too bad the antimonopoly days at the US Justice Department are dead and forgotten. Perhaps the EU will lead the world in 21st Century telecom by forcing its markets more open, and beat monolithic US competitors at their own game. Or perhaps another overseas company will find the clout to make it happen. I'm sure going to miss living in a "superpower" in more than tanks and missiles.

All you can eat!

[puremisery]

This seems like one more step towards the all you can eat model. For example when Internet service first came out it was billed by the hour. The same thing is happening with long distance today but there are several options for unlimited long distance. I see this being offered more and more by more and more phone companies. At some point I think the billing per minute model will have run it's course.

Free phone in Norway (Europe and North America)

[cronius]

Well, flat rate to be accurate (159 NOK,approximately 19,50 Euro)

A norwegian company Telio is offering a flat rate which gives you free calls to the following countries:

Sweden, Danmark, Finland, Iceland, Great Britian, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Liecthenstein, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, USA and Canada.

Count 'em: free calls to 19 different countries. And no BS computer stuff, just plug your regular phone to the broadband line (trough an adapter) and make calls to ordinary phones just like before (like in France, as you were saying).

No broadband or TV though, you'll have to fix that yourself ;)

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Telio other than being a costumer of theirs. And translating the country names from Norwegian to English was done on the fly, so sorry about any mistakes..

AC to Offer Free Colour Contrast

[Anonymous Coward]

http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/11/0 140252