Esat BT slowly bridging the gap

dahamsta

Knew there was a reason I came in here beyond slagging the mods. This article was posted at the start of the month, but I don't think it's been posted here. Registration required; no, I won't post the whole piece.

Billing and the network are the foundation of a telco/ISP. If one or other doesn't work properly, the business doesn't work. The Esat network ain't bad, and to my eye wasn't bad before Murphy came along, so if he's such a bloody genius, how come he can't fix the billing? It's the very first thing he should have addressed when he joined the company, but here we still are, a year and a half later, and it's as bad as ever. Their internal communications are woeful, their systems are restrictive, many of the sales and accounts staff don't understand what they're doing, and their billing is more hit-and-miss than an angry agoraphobic blind man with a fully-automatic weapon at an All-Ireland hurling final. Billing, Bill, Billing!

Esat BT slowly bridging the gap

01.08.2003 - It is half past eight on a Monday morning and as I wipe the last evidence of sleep from my eyes, a focused and the CEO of Esat BT, an exuberant Bill Murphy (pictured), is describing how he’s been on the go since arriving off the 5.30am red-eye flight he takes to Dublin every week after spending the weekend with his London-based family. He notices I am using a portable email device and says it is a similar weapon to the one he uses to keep the jump on colleagues no matter where business and life takes him.

“I have had all of Friday’s emails answered by 7am — even before I reached the office — and I am on top of things for the week ahead,” he says matter-of-factly. The week in question is the week in June that flat-rate internet access, otherwise known as FRIACO, came into being and Murphy, like a brigadier general mounting a surprise offensive on the enemy, is in a no-nonsense state of mind, anxious to be back in the driving seat. Murphy clearly views being interviewed by journalists as a necessary evil to tolerate as a No 2 player trying to break what he perceives as the incumbent telco’s (Eircom) seemingly inflexible grip on the marketplace. His answers are brusque, to the point and reflect steely ambition.

In more than 20 years in the telecoms business, Murphy has garnered something of a reputation as a market maverick within the BT Group, enabling the company to expand across the US and Europe on the back of deregulation and has held the head honcho position across numerous BT virgin ventures. Fighting an incumbent is something he has been trained to do. His career began in 1980 in New York with ITT World Communications. Eight years later he joined BT, helping the company establish its now strong presence across the US.

[...]

spongebob

British Telecom in Ireland are on a par with Telewest (the Chorus of the UK). Appaling.

Despite being the first to offer 1Mb cable and then 2Mb cable in the UK, Telewest are actually losing customers owing to their awful Billing and Customer care systems Story Of a Company like BT .

BT 's overall ineptitude makes Eircoms winback activities so much easier.

M

eth0_

Esat BT sponsor the supplement that that interview was featured in, btw
Would explain the reverential tone in evidence there

dahamsta

I might add that my dissing of EsatBT billing isn't just a product of my eternal hatred of the company. I spent a weekend with an extremely clueful EsatBT tech recently and some of the stories they had to tell were just comical. This person had to pretty much handle every step of getting DSL for themself, and literally had to walk the sales and billing people through their own systems.

This isn't just an isolated incident either. I've met with many, many people from all aspects of their business over the years: some of the original IOL techs, EsatClear (remember that?) CS and sales reps, through to their top network engineers. They all have a story to tell, and some of them can be genuinely quite scary.

adam

spongebob

my favourite was a leased line that they installed that nobody asked for, the salesman thought that the customer would use it and didn't, the ploy was to bill the customer for it after they started using it.

I nicked the router for a year to make sure they didnt. Nice 2500 jobbie, finally an esat drone showed up to take the equipment back. No bill ever arrived.

Knowing BT Ireland it could still show up some day.

Adam, most original IOL techs left before ESAT bought them. (by buying Postgem)

M

pete

Ah this reminds me - I have a threatening letter from EsatBT Accounts saying I owe them €300+, yet I have no EsatBT account (being one of the NoLimits refugees).

Do COMREG like to hear about that sort of thing?

Funnily enough, their sales people rang me on Thursday last to ask was I interested in saving money on my telephone bill.

Ho ho ho. Good one, lads.

edit: actually i'd imagine it's related to this tale of woe http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?postid=908116#post908116