Oh good. Transport for London gives Capita £80m for WAN, LAN and Wi-Fi Transport for London has inked an £80m deal with outsourcing giant Capita to provide Wide Area Network services in the UK capital. Under the deal, Capita will maintain WAN, LAN and Wi-Fi networks across more than 1,000 TfL sites from August 2018. The deal is for five years, with the option to extend it for another five. TfL …
It's entirely typical of TfL these days. They got rid of most of their engineering ability in favour of employing "project managers". They now have clueless PPE "graduates" running multi million pound infrastructure projects and won't ever blame these clueless cretins when things go wrong....
The senior management at TfL are starting to realise that they've screwed the pooch. Many of them are leaving as quickly as possible for private sector jobs - often taking serious pay cuts in the process - but safe in the knowledge that they're getting out before disaster strikes.
It is only a matter of time before there's a major disaster on the tube network. The Maintenance cutbacks and inept management mean that one of the busiest metros in the world is now so unsafe that many of in the know refuse to use it.
The roads infrastructure is a mess, with traffic control systems that used to be the envy of the world now so ineffectively managed that it can take three hours to travel 10 miles by road (as happened to me last month).
TfL is a disgrace and no longer fit for purpose. This example of truly stupid outsourcing is just one example of their utter ineptitude. Funny thing is - the Management of TfL whine on about reduced grants from Central Government: It's complete nonsense as their money from Central Government has more than kept pace with inflation - every year - and their fare rises massively exceed general inflation.
AC since I don't want to be sued (again!)
Who in their right mind would connect a device to a wireless network operated by Crapita ????
One could say that about anyone capable of implementing the scheme really.
If not Crapita I don't know who anyone would suggest should implement the scheme. Maybe everyone should just do nothing?
Anyone who wants to grab data from several million mobile handsets on a daily basis? Of course with Capita the WiFi networks are totally safe, never have problems and always have a reliable call centre to help.
...has so much, been buggered up for so many, by so few.
If I ever had the moral breakdown required to enter politics, and the sheer force of poisonous personality to grasp and claw my way to the top, my very first Act of Parliament would be the Stop Giving Capita Anything Act 2001 (I'd make it the only and only retrospective application of law in our history (probably)), thereby making it illegal for anyone to allow Capita to do anything except to run demonstrations on how to completely not do any sort of IT project... which of course they'd utterly fail to run properly.
I only wish I'd started a brown paper envelope business, because there must a be killing to be made supplying them to these clowns
Looks like they have a heavy UK presence, India not listed: http://www.capita.com/careers/job-search-and-apply
Nice to see a lack of PR on their Wiki too, lots of fund stories on their failures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capita
So what is to stop Crapita combining it's two roles of enforcement of the BBC licence fee and slurping data to monitor unauthorised usage of BBC iPlayer via mobile devices, or is that their real goal here?
Are Crapita now out to catch 16yo single mothers on the Circle line with push chairs watching a bit of iPlayer trying to keep warm, next Winter?
Dunno about that.
They send a letter to my flat every three months threatening me with court if I don't buy a TV licence.
Addressed to the guy who used to live there a few years ago, until he died.
I even told them he was no longer living.
They then asked me if I had his new address.
They still send threats to my address...
The article doesn't specify which TFL network infrastructure is covered by the contract. It's all very well scoffing and saying you don't need Wifi on the tube, but TFL themselves have various networks that will be covered by the contract, and these may do things like enable communication between important parts of the tube network, such as the signalling systems.
Wifi may or may not be important, but you need to be able to communicate with the signaling systems, and it''s entirely possible that modern signalling systems (such as that used on the Jubilee Line) will use standard networking hardware and protocols (such as Twisted Pair cabling and Ethernet) to communicate. Scoff all you like about Wifi, but TFL need to be able to communicate with the signaling systems.
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Not sure why TfL went with Crapita instead of a network specialist company who live & breath this kind of stuff, and maybe even have a great track record of delivery?
I'm sure that their Procurement team have some very convincing policy/procedural/guideline reasons for this decision...
TfL are now staffed by PPE graduate "project managers" who have no idea about anything technical. Give those idiots a nice Powerpoint presentation about how wonderful your "delivery" will be and how you employ the "right" proportion of BAME employess and you're sure to get the job, whether you're capable or (probably) not!
AC because I was there!
Wikipedia: "Capita Group has not been received well by the public and in the media. It has gained the nickname "Crapita", particularly from the coverage in the satirical and current affairs magazine Private Eye, which routinely documents the company's many failures and setbacks in the public sector."
As an American, I'm glad I don't live in London at this point. I've never interacted with Crapita, but I'm aware of how horrible they are to you poor sods. They've got a corporate reputation on the level of Comcrap, but with even more fail and with the ability to harass even non-customers.
Console yourselves with not having to live with Donald Drumpf as head of government, Theresa May is bad, but she's not Orange Tweetler bad.
I worked for them for a very very short time, I ran out of there,
It my years working in IT Desktop Services, I would be very careful on outsourcing ,I for one would stick with in-house services, but IT today is run by accounts, and budgets.
Worst mistake you can make by assigning Crapita another outsourcing contract, this will bite them in the you know what,
The answer is fairly obvious isnt it. Capita IT Services can deliver the WAN, LAN & Wifi. Capita had a dispute with TFL for which they incurred a penalty of £25m. 12 months later, Capita win a contract with TFL worth £80m.
I am pretty sure that the deal reflects good business to the tax payer as Capita IT Services are no doubt doing the job for next to nothing to help resolve the £25m dispute at Group level.
That's not going to help increase profitability for Capita, a wise man once said turnover is vanity and profitability is sanity..
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