RIP

Wow, there is a top level domain for .rip. which is nice. Makes sense with more and more memorial web sites.

What surprised me is that it is just like any other of the of the TLDs, and sells 2 to 10 year registration. I think they missed a trick. It should be like £500 for 100 years registration as only option... Would make a lots of sense for a memorial domain.

I assume that is what .rip. is for!

Maybe I should grab revk.rip now, just in case.

Barclays cut off times?

I worked out long ago that internal account transfers on Barclays are cut off at 18:30 local time.

This means that whilst the transfer is instant, the effective statement date is based on whether before or after 18:30 local UK time.

Well, they have added some text to the transfer now stating, so I assumed it had changed :-

So I followed the link.

So they are stating, categorically, that for a UK sterling transfer the cut off is 18:00 GMT (19:00 BST).

Well my transfer was in time... 18:44 BST, but is dated the 16th.

Don't lie to me Barclays. And don't think of charging because I was £2 over drawn today because you did not do the transfer TODAY.

Also, one wonders why the hell the cut off is not 00:00:00 like normal clocks!

It is possible to move number to VoIP and not kill broadband!

Finally I can confirm it is possible - we have done it - we have managed to port a BT landline number to VoIP without breaking the broadband on the line in question, just renumbering it to a new number.

We have a long way to go still...

• BT are giving us no clue as to whether they have fixed the underlying issue with orders like this, or if they just managed to brute force one of the orders through.
• There is still an issue on lead time (currently 10 days) which will make the process slightly messy.
• We still have to co-ordinate with a VoIP provider to handle the ports, but that is looking like it may be solved this morning.
• We have an issue that TalkTalk reference the broadband by its phone number, but have no process to update that on a renumber, which will break all sorts of things.

However, this is a major milestone - a ported number on a phone line with broadband and the broadband not breaking in the process.

I really should not be quite so pleased that such a simple task has been achieved, but it is one of those massive battles that has lasted well over a month with multiple emails to BT every day. At least now we know it is actually possible and can work on making this a proper product that people can order from us.

We'll be in touch with the people that have contacted us to trial this as soon as we have ironed the last details out with BT. Thank you for your patience.

P.S. We think it is working well enough that we are now allowing the take-over-line and port-number orders on A&A broadband ordering page if customers want to try this. We have people in BT that are taking it seriously and prepared to help sort any issues out.

Check my physics here...

As we have already seen there are moves afoot in Europe to reduce the power of various household appliances.

Update: See comments below - as this sounds like bad media reporting.

We have seen this in tumble dryers already, and there is a report (here) on kettles, toasters, and hair dryers.

Now, I am not going to debate the whole climate change thing! It makes a lot of sense for things to be more efficient in what they do, and save energy. I agree with that!

My problem is that some things are generating heat as what they do, and that is pretty much 100% efficient from electricity. There are tricks to do more, such as air-con, which is clever, but that does not help when talking about a toaster or hair dryer or kettle generally.

A kettle is a perfect example - an amount of energy is needed to raise the temperature of a quantity of water from room temperature (e.g. 20℃) to boiling (e.g. 100℃). There are some issues with heat loss from the container in to the environment, but the main factor, as I understand it, is the energy to heat the water.

You can heat the water quickly or slowly. If quickly you have a "high power" device, which is what they want to ban. If you heat it slowly you do not actually save any energy at all, you just take more time and cause more annoyance for the user.

Now, I am sure that there are some things where the power usage is not purely on heat and as such it may do a similar job with less energy - making something more efficient. But some things, like toasters, kettles, hair dryers, tumble dryers, and the like, are there to impart energy as heat. That is their job. That is what they do!

How exactly do any of these initiatives save energy in any way?

It is always worth remembering that people will be people so there is a side effect of such changes. In my house we have seen this happen. We used to have a US style tumble dryer - high power. When it finally broke we tried to get a new one and could not - all were much lower power because of EU rules. It was annoying. So, the simple solution, we purchased a "commercial" tumble dryer instead. It was not much more expensive. It needed a 30A feed which was not that hard to arrange, and is way more powerful than we had before.

So the EU initiatives have resulted in us buying a way more powerful device.

The same will happen with kettles and toasters if they are limited by EU directives.

At the end of the day, the energy we use depends on efficiency of devices, and more modern devices tend to be more efficient. Yes, save energy, but why try and save power on devices whose job is to impart energy - that makes no sense at all.

P.S. Simple example, room temperature 20℃, heating element 21℃, next to bread to make toast. Will the bread turn in to toast? No. It may turn in to stale bread given long enough, and use energy doing it. Clearly at this extreme of "low power toasting" nothing happens.

BT plc anticompetitive stonewalling?

We have now tried a simple BT order called a "Renumber and number export" some 11 times in the last month.

It is a relative new system, created about a year ago. This is a simple concept - the existing number on a phone line is renumbered to a new number, and the old number is "exported" to a new telco (in this case a VoIP provider).

The key thing here is that it is done by the existing BT wholesale line provider sending the number to the new telco, and not the new provider grabbing the existing number (and service). When grabbing the number the line is always ceased, and so is any broadband.

The key reason for using this type of order is that this will not break the phone service, it carries on with the new number, and it will not break the broadband. A renumber does not upset broadband. This is the crucial bit, and will allow us to offer our "copper pair" service for broadband with a VoIP service for the number. A new package which is already popular even though we have not launched it yet. So many people do not use a "phone line", but many would like to maintain their old "number" anyway.

The problem is EVERY SINGLE ORDER has failed!

The failures are not all the same, we have three lines we are testing with. Some go through to "Committed" stage quickly and even allocate the new number for the line, some "Committed" and no new number. Either way, on the two week lead time (which is meany to be 4 days) they fail and get cancelled. Some get stuck in "Acknowledged" state indefinitely and never progress at all.

The issue here is nobody in BT plc is prepared to actually fix the issue. We are told "there is an exception, wait 24 hours for it to clear". The "wait 24 hours", or "there will be an update at end of day" are classic stalling tactics to make us go away for another day or a weekend. Meanwhile nothing is fixed, nothing is explained.

This is hampering our ability to launch this new product of "broadband and copper pair and move number to VoIP" which so many customers would like from us, and is clearly ANTI COMPETITIVE. BT plc presumably want to hinder us and hinder competition and have every interest in stalling us at every stage. They have no commercial interest to actually make this type of order work at all, it seems.

Now, let's be clear. WE ARE HAPPY TO WORK WTH BT and I have said this many times. If this is some technical glitch, or change to how we send the order or whatever, I am more than happy to work with BT to fix this. The problem is BT seem incapable and unwilling to work with us.

We are over a month of this now, and the latest, apart from "update by end of day" which has not happened, was "this order DN status shows Working which needs to be spare if it's for renumbering"!

Now just a second - when we renumber a line the existing line has to be "working" and the number "working" not "spare". What the fuck are they on about? No explanation (after 3 hours since I asked) for this odd comment. We have had every excuse under the sun, with how orders have exceptions, are not built correctly on their system, and not a SINGLE instance of someone saying WE HAVE FIXED IT, let alone explained the problem.

Next step, OFCOM! BT plc are clearly, in my view, being anticompetitive. This needs fixing. I am available to work with BT on this all weekend, but if not sorted by Monday it will be formal complaint and threat of involving OFCOM.

P.S. Letter drafted, solicitor checking it first, will go to formal complaint 9am tomorrow.

#IPBill commons committee stage... Was it worth it?

Looking at the report here, I see almost entirely typographical or grammatical changes and nothing else.

These include serious changes like:-

And perhaps the most meaningful change I can see is:-

I know there were many proposed changes (I help draft one) that would actually impact meaning. I see almost nothing that does that.

The Lords have their job cut out for them now.

P.S. I was a bit confused as the date is April, but no, this is the changes released start of May...

ASA broadband and "line rental"

Once again the ASA are not quite getting to grips with how things work in their latest set of rules on broadband pricing.

The good news appears to be that they "recommend" adverts "Show all-inclusive up-front and monthly costs; no more separating out line rental". Well, I am fine with recommendations, it is only when they start treating them as rules that make no sense that I have an issue.

So, first off, I welcome anything that makes adverts clear on what you get and what it costs and indeed I expect adverts to be clear on everything. I do find it a tad annoying that you get things like this, which is BT saying their Phone only package for unlimited weekend calls is £0/mth and then £17.99 line rental in small grey print. Note that this is just an advert for phone service, not broadband, so not covered by new ASA ruling. Similar adverts for broadband where a line rental is required are also annoying.

So I see where the ASA are coming from.

But saying we have to include the line rental in the main price is going to cause confusion.

For a start, companies not offering line rental don't have to, so before we did line rental A&A could advertise our entry level Home::1 package with 100GB as £25/mth and people would compare to ISP offering broadband for £27.99/mth. Except that the £27.99/mth includes £17.99/mth line rental so not a fair comparison.

But because we happen to also offer line rental (well, copper pair, no phone service) as an option we will have to quote our Home::1 package as £35/mth. This makes comparison to £27.99/mth easier to make, except you are not comparing like for like. For a start, our broadband will have different characteristics in terms of usage levels, type of line maybe, technical aspects, top up costs, and so on, but if you are really comparing solely on price (who does that?) then it is easier to compare.

There are, of course, companies offering Internet Access by some means which does not require any sort of "line rental". Their prices will look good, except for when people think that they will include a telephone service with them. Why would they? But if all adverts are prices as including a telephone service then consumers will assume that comes as part of a broadband package even when it does not.

We will have a similar problem in that a lot of people will expect "line rental" to provide a telephone service and even some calls included maybe. Our "copper pair" is cheap, only £10/mth, but does not do that. So if someone comes to us paying £25/mth and retains a BT line at £17.99/mth then they are paying £42.99/mth and not the £35/mth we advertised. To get that price they would have to take "line rental" from us. Whilst we have a lot of people taking a "copper pair" from us for broadband, the majority still use someone else for "line rental", so the advertised price of £35/mth is not meaningful to most customers.

We are working on a way to more seamlessly move numbers to VoIP, but again, that is confusing as we charge £1.20/mth for the VoIP plus call charges, so to compare against a phone line (even forgetting call costs) you need to have us advertise a total of £36.20/mth to include "line rental" and a "telephone service" (albeit VoIP) and "broadband" in one package. The ASA do not seem to have gone that far in what they are asking. What is scary is there is some comment on some news that the total package price including TV should be shown one day. Why assume that people are always buying a bundle?

At the end of the day we will have some ISPs advertising a headline price that has no line rental (but still you need it with someone like BT); others advertising a price that includes line rental which is optional at a price which will not apply to most customers that won't take that option but still use BT line rental; Others advertising a package price including their mandatory line rental; and others advertising a price for some pure fibre service or wifi or other type of service with no telephony included.

How will customers be expected to understand the differences?

Personally I would have said that any pricing should quote clearly any mandatory components with the same prominence. E.g. "Internet access £35/mth, copper pair £10/mth" or something.

Given this is a recommendation, we'll review the best way for us to present pricing on our web site to be as clear as possible.