It's difficult to serve the public - they get upset about the most petty things. And fair pricing is all very well too, but sometimes the old days, when things were priced against the money BT needed to provide them and stay in business, seems so attractive. By Ian Scales
BT has been reminded of the complex relationship between costs, pricing and customers over the past week. Customers first.
The good people of Hambleden Valley in the English Country of Oxfordshire have got themselves in a lather because one of their number seems to have jumped the queue for a distance-enhanced DSL product BT has been trialing there. Because of the low population density in the county, the old, old DSL problem of lower speeds for longer distances from the exchange has been a real problem.
BT has been testing a bonding technique in the area designed to overcome the broadband problem by using multiple pairs to make up for the narrowness of each copper-based circuit.
The trouble was they chose the Chairman of BT, Sir Michael Rake, who lives there, to be a beneficiary of a much-prized 1 or 2Mbit/s trial services which can operate over copper up to 12 km from the exchange.
Sensing a departure from English fair play, Sir Michael's neighbours, who had been moaning and queueing for years to get themselves a broadband connection were outraged.
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