Posts by Commswonk

Finally, that tech fad's over: Smartwatch sales tank more than 50%

Re: I buy therefore I am

Consumerism leads to emptyness. 'To have' cannot replace 'to be'.

You are Confucius and I claim my £5.

Swedes ban camera spy-drones for anything but crime fighting

Oh the possibilities...

The only question now is whether or not Swedish police will have the means – or the inclination – to try to prosecute drone fliers. It could well be they have neither.

I read the above and immediately saw (in my mind's eye, that is) a squadron of drones with flashing blue LEDs and little sirens chasing illegal camera - equipped drones.

Failure to stop? Then "Tactical Contact" or "TPAC" as appropriate. Or a net strung between 2 of them.

Give the Swedish Police the means and they will immediately find the inclination.

I mean...who wouldn't?

Asda server glitch leaves customers without online shopping

Re: 1st world problems

They could tweet their re-discovered grocery shopping experience.

Worth an upvote that... on the downside the "grocery shpping experience" at Tes*o involves negotiating the traffic jams caused by the shop staff trunding round with the big trolleys being filled up for home delivery / click & collect aficionados.

And the semi feral kids that seem to inhabit the place from time to time.

And the mothers who yak constantly into fondleslabs instead of monitoring the above kids.

Etc...

</meldrew>

Parliamentarians ask Obama to withdraw Lauri Love extradition request

Re: Just don't send him

He actually committed at least three offences under the act:

Should that not read: He actually allegedly committed at least three offences under the act:

He hasn't actually been tried yet...

Hapless Network Rail contractors KO broadband in Uxbridge

Re: Interesting point...

Um. From the post you referenced I am still not sure. Not sure that "core network" adequately describes the concept of "trunk routes" against "local circuits".

Consider this question and I think the distinction becomes more obvious (or confused!):

Who is responsible for ensuring that my car has a valid MOT certificate?

I am.

Do I carry out the test myself?

Definitely not; I must find an authorised tester to do it for me.

If nothing else this shows the distinction between "responsible for" and "who does it".

Re: Interesting point...

Which sadly doesn't really help add clarity

Not total clarity perhaps, but helpful nonetheless, and interesting reading. For those agitating for the shotgun divorce of BT & OR it really could be a question of "be careful what you wish for".

Re: Interesting point...

@AndrueC: A good question. According to the Wikipedia article on BT Group it seems that it might be the little known 'BT Technology':

The linked page also hints that it could be BT Wholesale - "operates BT's Networks". The words "responsible for" (as used to describe BT Technology) does not actual mean that anyone gets down and dirty in cable chambers, merely that they are responsible for it, and that they get "contracted effort", which could of course be Openreach.

A labyrinthine muddle of which Philip Green could be proud, which could of course be the intention.

Interesting point...

Openreach has said its engineers are on site working 24/7 to get the cables fixed.

Let us assume (in the absence of information to the contrary) that the above statement is true.

While Openreach is a part of BT it is able to divert jointers from anywhere it wishes to address major failures of this sort. What might happen if Openreach was forcibly detached from BT? BT would lose the ability to draft in effort from "wherever" and would be reliant on the new company being prepared to shuffle manpower around, which it might be disinclined to do in the absence of a closely specified and enforced SLA, which of course would have to be paid for.

It also raises the question about exactly which cables Openreach manages and which ones it doesn't. It isn't entirely clear from the article if the cables concerned were all "subscribers lines" (of one type or another) or if they were trunk circuits between BT premises, or a mix of both. If Openreach looks after the trunk network as well as "local" circuits (which the Wikipedia article suggests they don't) then splitting off Openreach as it currently exists could have unintended consequences. And if Openreach doesn't look after trunk routes then who does?

Sky’s CEO drops MVNO bombshell at results conference

Corrigendum

Darroch said, “Looking ahead, the forthcoming launch of our mobile proposition will add another major product offering to our UK line up and will give our customers the opportunity to take even more from a brand known for great customer service and quality products.”

should have read

Darroch said, “Looking ahead, the forthcoming launch of our mobile proposition will add another major product offering to our UK line up and will give our customers us the opportunity to take even more from our customers a brand known for great customer service and quality products.”

We apologise for any misunderstanding...

Hard-up Brits 'should get subsidy for 10Mbps'

I won't be seeking technical advice from you in future.

In your place I wouldn't either, because you might not understand it. Go and reread what you said and you will see that my response was perfectly proper and correct. Had you originally written what you meant instead of a mangled form of it then my answer wouldn't have been posted in the first place.

OK; I'll help you out. "BT only offered up to 16Mbps ADSL profiles" means that BT only offers ADSL (the speed is irrelevant) when what you meant was "BT's ADSL service only provides up to 16 Mb/s.

"If you want correct answers then you must ask correct questions"

Try harder next time...

That's ALL that needs to be done. JUST BLOW A FUCKING FIBRE OUT TO EVERY ADDRESS.

Your rant might have made more sense if the post on which you appear to be commenting hadn't been deleted by its author.

As an aside I (and doubtless many others) would be delighted (and probably amused) if you were to tell us just how much " fibre to every address" would cost. And tell us "from where". The exchange? Nearest cabinet?

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought BT only offered up to 16Mbps ADSL profiles

Yup; you're wrong. BT offer FTTC in a lot of places; last time I checked we got something > 42 Mb/s

Openreach split could damage broadband investment, says BT's chief exec

Re: No one is saying Pointless G.fast can't do the job - up to a poiint.

The Ducts in the past, carried a minimum of 200 copper pairs from the exchange to the cabinet. Are you saying that's now not possible with Fibre? or just another excuse, biasing your choice of G.fast over FTTP.

It was me that mentioned duct capacity, but not in the context of supporting G.Fast. Clearly there would be duct space if all the copper was pulled out first, but that really isn't an option. Pulling the copper out would mean that telephony would have to be over fibre; perfectly feasible but not necessarily a good idea because each individual subscriber would need a powered terminal just to maintain a telephone, and without battery back up the telephone service would fail in the event of a power cut. I doubt if many would see that as a good thing, as it would rely on non - technical subscribers (i.e. almost all of them) understanding what could go wrong and why, and what they could do about it.

Re: No one is saying Pointless G.fast can't do the job - up to a poiint.

I don't know about the general picture, but where I am, many dozens (around 100?) lines on the same FTTC cabinet have had a problem since mid September. (snipped...)

An interesting report, and I genuinely wonder what might be causing it all. The cabinet is (or ought to be) totally passive as far as the speech circuit is concerned, with simple filtering to combine the VDSL and the speech bands for connection to the copper local end. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is that a / the power supply (i.e. the DC supply after conversion from the incoming mains) has become wildly unstable and is putting noises at audio frequency on to the line, but even then I cannot really see how it is getting in.

Does BT still have a "high level complaints" email address? Yes; it's called Ofcom, or perhaps Trading Standards, on the basis that you are being charged for and paying for a service that you aren't getting.

Failing that try to get "You and Yours", "Watchdog" or "Rip - Off Britain" involved. That puts things firmly in the public domain which BT is unlikely to appreciate; it might just spur the company into action to limit the bad publicity.

Or you could write to the Chief Exec or the Chairman of the Board...

Without wishing to be unkind you are clearly beyond the point where you keep repeating the same actions in the hope of something different happening; see Einstein's definition of madness.

Re: No one is saying Pointless G.fast can't do the job - up to a poiint.

Real Fibre optic FTTP is a simpler, passive network should read Real Fibre optic FTTP is a simpler, more expensive passive network

force all new installs to be real FTTP fibre optic

And will subscribers thus equipped pay a monthly fee that reflects the increased cost of the FTTP, or are those of us on ADSL / VDSL (FTTC) going to find our payments racked up so that we all finish up paying the same?

We're already seeing apathy regarding FTTC uptake because subscribers have slowed connections at peak times

Are you certain that any apathy isn't down to a reluctance to pay for the increased costs of VDSL v ADSL? And can you be sure that FTTP won't also be multiplexed within the cabinet in the same way as FTTC?* For that not to be the case then each individual building will have to have an individual fibre back to the serving exchange, where it will be multiplexed anyway. Running individual fibres from each FTTP subscriber back to the exchange would be ruinously expensive, and I suspect that there simply isn't the space within the ducts to do it anyway. For that idea to be viable then the monthly fee for broadband would be eye - watering, and would encounter serious consumer resistance. OK for business users, perhaps, but for residential customers? Forget it.

* Of course with "cabinet multiplexing" (i.e. that's where the DSLAM is) the local network is no longer going to be passive, but it isn't now anyway. Have you any evidence to suggest that the existing FTTC is inherently unreliable because the cabinets have to be powered?

Digi minister Matt Hancock: Britain needs go full fibre. And we're not paying for it

Re: Why Why are all politicians complete morons?

See title; because politics seems to attract more than its fair share of narcissists who believe that their success at the ballot box and elevation to some sort of ministerial post was based on having all sorts of magic powers and furthermore automatically confers on them all sorts of secret knowledge denied to the proles*.

It's not limited to politicians; we've all had managers who believe that their appointment conferred on them powers of divination denied to us lesser beings, and that any knowledge they don't have is not relevant anyway.

* Includes me, I have to admit.

Re: What about the BT handout??

Forgive me if i am incorrect but didn't we already pay for BT to give country wide access to fibre?

IIRC you are incorrect; BT was given a load of money to provide broadband, and it has achieved that tolerably well, as long as you* think that FTTC provides a decent enough service for the majority of users.

BT was not handed enough dosh to provide FTTP; neither was it required to. FTTC was / is the best way of getting a "large" number of users on to a "reasonably fast" broadband service.

* Risky admission; I am one of those included in "you".

And in turn I find it extremely worrying that some of those people seem to be El Reg contributors.

Swisscom claims world's first G.fast broadband service

The problem is complete lack of interest in breaking up BT / Openreach and forcing it to do what it should be doing

OK; let's assume that Openreach is separated from BT; if both parts are / remain shareholder - owned companies then the concept of forcing either or both to do anything simply will not and cannot arise.

By extension your argument would lead to my being forced to pay for a much faster speed than I either want or need following widespread FTTP roll - out so that I can subsidise those who think they need it.

Other countries fibre in their properties, so distance isn't even an issue (sure, it costs, but once it's in you're done for the next 50 years).

The first part of that is what might be described as a non sequitur and the bit in brackets, while true on a technical level, overlooks that fact that some sort of RoI will be wanted after (say) 5 years, not 50.

May blocked plans to bring in more Indian IT workers – Vince Cable

we are also an overpopulated country where many people struggle to afford the rising cost of living

If DC had made a proper job of representing that fact to the EU hierarchy then they might just have been more receptive to the idea of rethinking the mantra of the unfettered movement of people. That might just have made the outcome of the referendum different. IIRC the UK is close to being the most densely populated country in the EU, and it certainly is if the figures for England are considered in isolation. I might quibble about the generality of the "rising cost of living" but just putting a roof over their heads is becoming further and further detached from many peoples' capabilities, which is as good a reason for trying to minimise immigration as one is likely to find.

You haven't been following John McDonnell recently, then ...

If I don't sleep well tonight because of reading that I will hold you directly responsible. Grrr...

Cui Bono?

Senior execs at India’s Tata Group, which owns 19 companies in the UK including outsourcing biz TCS, had previously said a possible “Brexit” would be “highly damaging” for business

Yeah, OK. Perhaps Theresa May has twigged that what is "good for business" isn't necessarily good for those who work for it or even the wider community. Tata's UK investments are made on the basis of "what is good for Tata", not on "what is best for the UK". Obviously Tata is not alone; any business investing / spending in the UK is not done as an act of charity for the UK and its electorate; it is done pursuit of the company's own interests.

Clearly there is a balance to be struck, and making things "actively bad" for business would probably not be a wise move but if Theresa May has acted to redress the balance more in favour of UK citizens (the electorate!) then all well and good IMHO.

Why should perfectly capable UK personnel have to sit around on JSA while imported personnel do the work, possibly receiving in - work benefits courtesy of the taxpayer in the process, as well as adding to the pressure on housing, healthcare and so on.

NHS patients must be taught to share their data, says EU lobby group

Won't solve this though...

From the "news" items that arise from time to time the biggest problem facing the medical profession at the moment is the increasing ineffectiveness of antibiotics. Now there is no obvious means of knowing if Big Pharma is doing anything about this out of the public gaze, but finding new drug treatments for common infections that could run riot through humanity following just a small mutation in the infective agents would seem to be a more worthwhile activity than delving into the detail of patient records for any reason.

Would trawling patient records help find a treatment for ebola, to cite just one example? I suspect not. Just look at all the treatments have been developed without harvesting patient data on a huge scale.

Like (I suspect) every other commentard I sincerely hope that this idea is trampled on and killed off at once, but I fear that it won't be...

Perhaps its supporters could tell us exactly which medical procedures will benefit from the idea while at the same time the risk of dying from a hospital acquired infection gets greater and greater.

German regulators won't let Tesla use the name 'Autopilot'

Re: Good

...let's see how he deals with a competent country like Germany.

Would that be the same Germany that is home to, er, VW?

OTOH VW's actions were (in a way) quite competent but underhand. Should the same word be applied to the entire country, perhaps?

Re: Assistopilot

Definitely not, please; too easily converted into Assist - o - Pilot, which I suspect would be popular in the US.

Ugh.

Salesforce rules out Twitter bid

Obligatory Dilbert...

http://dilbert.com/strip/2001-03-31

Wi-Fi baby heart monitor may have the worst IoT security of 2016

Re: "Utmost importance"

"The safety, security and privacy of our customers are of the utmost importance to us"

Am I the only one getting sick to the back teeth of this phrase, or an extremely similar one, being trotted out by every bloody company that gets caught cutting corners, when the evidence points to the exact opposite?

No; you aren't. Not by a very long shot, I suspect. You almost apologised for "ranting", but in reality the point you make is entirely valid, and you must avoid giving the users of the boilerplate statement any possible excuse to ignore you by suggesting that your point is a rant.

BT will HATE us for this one weird 5G trick

Re: Surely ...

Practice a bit, you'll soon get the hang of it.

Patronising, aren't you.

Grow up.

Re: Surely ...

@wonk

You seem to have confused the word "reduce" with "eliminate".

I fear the confusion is yours. You were the person who suggested "do away with the commute"; had you suggested reducing it then your argument would have been rather stronger. But "do away with" means "eliminate", not "reduce".

I am of an age that would suggest that I am unlikely to see the fruits of your imagination, and for that I am, I think, grateful. I don't think I would find the sort of society that you seem to see as desirable all that attractive. I might even go as far as to suggest that it is a metropolitan view trying to force itself on everybody else, at which point I would have to agree that my argument is the reverse - trying to prevent a metropolitan - centric view taking hold everywhere. (Shades of "Brexit"?)

Having said that I have to agree that the roads are hell, the trains are hell, and the pavements (at times) little better. Round here part of the trouble is small children on scooters; they are training to be bigger people on bicycles, still on the pavements and with no regard for pedestrians.

Re: Surely ...

The other obvious way to solve this is to just do away with the commute, remote working is easy, the technologies are there

Get everyone home-working, and walking everywhere.

The only "obvious" thing is that it is complete bollocks. Return to an economy based on cottage industries? Where do you think that would leave the wider economy?

Who manufactured the device on which you typed those posts? Someone working at home? Did you buy it from someone working at home? If it goes wrong will it be repaired by someone working from home? How will you get it there? The idea of a postal service based on people working at (not from) home is rather amusing.

Sick? No hospitals because their employees would not be working at home. No point in going to the doctor; he has no drugs to prescribe because they cannot be made in homes, other than the illegal and dangerous variety. Bicycles made at home? Good luck with that one as well. Haircut? Give yourself a headshave.

A society based on home working will not last very long, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. In principle it is no different from the once popular idea that "financial services" should and could be the mainstay - if not the sole means - of supporting an economy. How can an economy work based only on people sitting at keyboards?

OTOH it would render the need for phone cells on lamp posts in London wholly unnecessary, which might not be a bad thing.

Boost Ofcom's powers and fix mobile market woes, Three and TalkTalk tell MPs

Corrigendum

David Dyson, head of Three, agreed: “Ofcom needs more powers to make decisions based on consumer interests.”

should have read David Dyson, head of Three, agreed: “Ofcom needs more powers to make decisions based on consumer Three's interests.”

There; that's better.

Samsung to Galaxy Note 7 users: Turn it off. Now

Re: Sabotage ???

given the volume it is inconceivable to me that these problems did not show up in QA - unless that was rigged or not done, and I don't see the latter happening in a company like Samsung.

Perhaps some of the work was outsourced to <car manufacturer>.

Re: Were it an Apple unit behaving this way

Ugh! I wish I could unread that... not an image I wish to retain.

What's not to love about IoT – you can spy on customers as they arrive

Include me out...

I want to trigger a workflow. The workflow is about changing the experience I have. Detect the licence plate of this individual and whenever they’re coming into your hotel, your bank, this is about customising their experience… this is how IoT video surveillance can trigger the right workflow."

Most civilised beings can establish good interpersonal relationships - for business or on a purely personal level - very quickly without the intervention of any IoT surveillance. Actually it's part of the fun, and is very rewarding in and of itself. I don't want anyone else trying to do it for me. On a practical level how does it know if the car coming into the car park is really me or the person I sold it to last week? (Don't tell me; they'll bulk buy the data from DVLA / DMV; shudder...) Or a pool car, or a hire car. "Trigger the right workflow?" Management bollocks.

Whether the wider world will be happy with the idea of persistent, personalised surveillance remains to be seen.

I'll save him a bit of research, even if it's only a very little bit; I hate the fucking idea. With a passion. I regard his thinking as a monstrous invasion of my privacy.

Prime Minister May hints at shaking up Blighty's 'dysfunctional' rural broadband

Re: Denial of own figures - here we go again

...do they just ignore information they don't like, or doesn't fit their political agenda?

I hope you read the second pdf in detail. I quote: Over our modelling period (to 2024), these interventions are projected to return approximately £20 in net economic impact for every £1 of public investment. This is an unusually high level of return for public funding, but we consider it to be realistic, given that broadband is a General Purpose Technology which has an increasingly critical role in the day-to-day operations of the majority of UK businesses. (snip) The bulk of this economic impact comes from improvements in the productivity of broadband-using firms, as illustrated in the chart below, but there are also significant benefits from safeguarding employment in areas which would otherwise be at an unfair disadvantage, from productivity-enhancing time-savings for teleworkers, and from increased participation in the labour force.

The important point to note is that the report relates to business applications for broadband, not domestic / personal use. Now if every potential rural BB user was indeed a business then indeed providing them with genuinely high speed BB would be an investment with significant returns. However, if the rural BB users turned out to be purely or largely domestic users (hey everyone see this cool cat video) then the x 20 multiplier could easily turn out to be a complete fiction.

If I can spot that then so can the government... and so could you, come to think about it.

Re: good starting point

What is the difference in cost of laying fttp vs copper to new housing estates?

On what basis have you unilaterally decided that no copper needs be laid?

Re: good starting point

Split the cost between the telco and builders 50/50 and you are also laying the ground to get the surrounding areas up and running to fttp.

You are joking aren't you? If the builders contribute to the cost that contribution will only apply up to the point at which the property is sold to an occupant. And the telcos will (perfectly reasonably) need to recover their investment, so guess who pays for that? Yes; the occupant, who will probably be forced to have an FTTP service (assuming that they want broadband in the first place) even if its performance far exceeds what they actually need.

How would you like it if you went shopping to find that only top of the range goods were available on the grounds that "some people want it"?

Should Computer Misuse Act offences committed in UK be prosecuted in UK?

Re: Jurisdiction

If I commit a crime in the UK and stay in the UK, however, I would expect to be dealt with by the UK, not the US. They seem to believe that they have jurisdiction over the whole world, and should be allowed to take them to the US for trial no matter where the crime was committed. Team America: World Police.

Quite so. However, I have a vague recollection that there have been occasions where US Service personnel based at one of the notionally RAF sites have committed offences on UK soil, and are immediately spirited off back to the US where they remain firmly beyond the reach of the UK legal system. I'm not sure if this is enshrined in the Visiting Forces Act or not but it has the effect of subordinating UK legal interests to the whim of US authorities.

Perhaps this is the hallmark of the "special relationship"; one of the parties (the UK) gets permanently shafted by the other. (The US)

Re: Should be tried here.

While in broad terms I support the argument that any trial should be held here there is a glaring precedent where the UK went out of its way to have a foreign suspect extradited to the UK for trial here - specifically the trial (held in Scotland under Scottish Law) for the person or persons suspected of placing a bomb on Pan Am 103.

Although it seems that the bomb was placed on the aircarft at Heathrow, it had started its journey (I think) in Malta and had also passed through Frankfurt.

Yes - it exploded over Scotland, but the chain of events leading to that explosion started elsewhere; Libya if the outcome of the trial was correct. (I include that because there still seems to be some residual doubt.)

The accused were never suspected of putting the bomb on Pan Am 103 at Heathrow in person; I think we have to assume that the "final pair of hands" through which the bomb passed had no idea whatsoever of what he or she had handled.

And yet the person(s) accused were eventually brought to the UK for trial, even if they themselves did nothing on UK soil to bring about the destrcution of the aircraft and the deaths of all the passengers, crew, and several on the ground in Lockerbie.

In this case if in no other the UK government won the argument that the trial should take place in the UK, so there is an inconsistency in arguing that someone (e.g. Lauri Love) should not be tried in the US.

Dirty diesel backups will make Hinkley Point C look like a bargain

Re: Energy Storage

'Renewables as a religion' should now be a capital offense.

That got you my upvote.

Re: Greens just don't understand numbers

I have just realised that there is a further flaw in the statement Dinorwig is limited by the size of the top lake. If you could build another Dinorwig but give it a bigger lake you would change the equation.

For pumped storage to work there has to be a suitable "sump" which must hold the water after it has been forced through the turbines by gravity; without that sump there would be no water left to pump back up to the reservoir for later use. So doubling the capacity of the header tank would have to be accompanied by a doubling of the size of the sump, as well as doubling the energy required to pump the water back up again as previously mentioned.

I'm sure the UK is just riddled with suitable sites... not.

To be fair you would certainly change the equation but not in any way that could be described as remotely helpful.

Re: Greens just don't understand numbers

Dinorwig is limited by the size of the top lake. If you could build another Dinorwig but give it a bigger lake you would change the equation. There must be places suitable...

Must there? Where?

Apart from anything else if the reservoir at Dinorwig was doubled, the immediate result would be that the power needed to recharge the reservoir would be automatically doubled as well. The big downside of Pumped Storage is that it needs pumping, and that needs power generated by other means.

I, for one, do not believe in perpetual motion machines.

Re: Heads in the cloud or so far up their...

some Green Party mouth piece was banging on how we should be investing in research into renewables rather than building a new power station - "we could be world leaders in renewables!!" he cried.

Ok, fair point.

I don't think it is a "fair point". The Greens are very good at agitating from the sidelines but how many of them are actively engaged in developing "renewables"? They are very good at being noisy but when it comes to the reality of providing a reliable source of a domestic and business energy supply I strongly suspect that they simply haven't a clue.

IMHO there ought to be special hospitals where Green Enthusiasts are treated; operating theatres where if the power suddenly drops the operation stops and the patient, er, dies. Ward heating would, of course, be permanently unavailable.

They might feel very righteous about their stance about I don't think that they have thought it through to its logical end-point.

Re: Greens just don't understand numbers

Build more storage, they cry

As well they might. However, quite apart from the shortage of places where "Dinorwig" could be replicated there is the point that such schemes require more power to pump the reservoir up again than it delivered in the first place. No machine is 100% efficient; the Laws of Thermodynamics see to that.

So where is the power to recharge the reservoir to come from? What happens if the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow?

More elderly and "fuel impoverished" people die, but I doubt if the Greens have really considered that.

Yahoo! couldn't! detect! hackers! in! its! network! but! can! spot! NSFW! smut! in! your! office?

Smut ptobability... now there's a phrase.

Indeed there is. Perhaps you can tell us what it means.

Read it carefully before replying...

Dublin shopkeeper catches forecourt fouler with his pants down

Re: Horse did it?

I just know there's a lot of variation in the smell of my own shit that can't be accounted for by diet. Usually it isn't too bad (though I'm probably used to it) but occasionally it smells like I ate something half rotted that died again and rotted the rest of the way in my digestive system. Even if I haven't had any meat or cheese in the past few days. No idea what triggers that occasional very foul smell, maybe I'm just sick in some way but don't know it, I'm just glad for bathroom fans on such occasions!

Don't you think that might just fall into the category of "over - sharing"?

Narcissist Heidi Powell wants her dot-com and she wants it now, now, NOW!

It would be nice...

...if someone had the email addresses of both Heidi Powells. If they were sent a link the original would get to know that she has a lot of support (On El Reg, anyway) and the imposter would get to know that she, er, doesn't.

I understand that Narcissistic Injuries can have rather nasty manifestations, and in many cases are truly deserved. It's just a pity that we wouldn't get to see them.

UK copyright troll weeps, starts 20-week stretch in the cooler for beating up Uber driver

Re: Oh, please don't put me in jail . . .

This will destroy my life, I am the director of a company and everyone would lose their jobs. We have 1,000 clients, we have staff all around the country, and it would die

"We had 1000 clients" might turn out to be more accurate. If they have an integrity they will dissociate themselves from this hooligan before his first week of incarceration is over.

We can hope so, anyway...

If the business folds it might be hard on the other employees but they can always claim constructive dismissal, if having an arsehole for an MD is an allowable criterion.

BT Openreach boss wants you to know that deep down, they care

Re: @Commswonk

There are other sorts of "comms" you know!

As chance would have it my dealings with the GPO / BT predate the existence of the internet, never mind broadband, and FWIW those dealings were not as an employee. Those dealings were but a small part of my life in "comms".

If BT is tilting the playing field then indeed it must be held to account for it, but it still has to be via your own ISP; it is buying wholesale and then retailing it (with a mark up) so it (your ISP) has to act as an intermediary between you (the customer) and whoever actually provides the circuit, in most cases BT, for any shortcomings in performance. Your ISP sold you a specified QoS and if you are not getting it then it is your ISP that has to be the point of contact. If your ISP still cannot provide the level of service that is being paid for then it is the ISP that has breached the contract, not BT.

Unfocussed rants rarely achieve their intended goal, and the original post to which I responded looked very much like one.

Re: Complete and utter assholes

Ofcom need to put openreach's balls in a vice and accept and investigate complaints from end users instead of letting openreach insulate itself with ISPs who have no reason to give a shit either.

Sorry; that is tosh. I am not trying to claim that OR is blameless but if you buy your service from a Sue, Grabbit, and Run ISP (apologies to Private Eye!) then your contract is with S, G, & R, not Openreach. The fact that S, G, & R buys in a service at wholesale rates from BT means that S, G, & R has to provide you with after - sales support; that is the deal. If you don't like it buy direct from BT as a retail customer; then you can complain to BT if your service is substandard.

Thinking about it even retail customers don't deal with OR; they (OK I'm one of them!) deal with BT, who in turn deals with OR if that is what is needed.