They told The Times they'd stay [5 February 1998]
The Times was supposed to be publishing a feature about Cable and Wireless Watch today in its Interface section. It didn't appear: the journalist, Chris Ward, doesn't know why. He has very kindly sent me the article to use 'as I wish', and here it is exactly as received. He has also made a statement.
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International telecommunications giant Cable and Wireless has given in to customers worried it was planning to take away their free telephone calls to the Internet after intervention from Interface.
Last year C&W took over most local cable television and telephone companies in the UK, including Videotron which had offered users free off-peak local telephone calls to other Videotron subscribers, including ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
Many users were told that these free calls would stop by June this year, and a campaign against the decision was mounted by some of them. 'We have no plans to remove (the free local calls that operated on the old
Videotron package). Customers who signed up to that package can keep it for as long as they want indefinitely,' a company spokesman promised. 'We certainly haven't made any decision to remove that. However, the Videotron package is kept frozen in time and as the normal Cable and Wireless Communications tariffs go down the Videotron tariff stays the same, so in the end it will be in most people's interest to actually switch over to the Cable and Wireless
tariffs'.
One user, Alastair Scott, devoted his personal web page [URL omitted] to the campaign. He detailed the history of the problem, and included a 'pledge form' which former Videotron customers could use to promise that, if the free calls were taken away, they’d take all their custom away from C&W.
He also collected details on how much they all spent on their telephone calls outside the free period, and was amazed by the results. 'The average spend is £52,' he says. He's equally amazed that, after months of failing to respond at all to their customers' worries, C&W have finally just given in. 'What they’ve told (Interface) is exactly what I’ve been suggesting they do (on my web site),' says Mr Scott. 'It is a huge U-turn from (last year’s) bellicose position.'
However, he’s mystified at the claim that most customers would still be better off switching to new C&W tariffs. 'The assertion that the Videotron package will become uncompetitive is wrong; many people use the Internet so much that it would have to be a really crazy, contrived C&W tariff with paying local calls to beat the Videotron ones'. Now he wants C&W to put their promise in writing to all Videotron customers, and for them to be told they’re valued as C&W customers. 'C&W are great slitherers and sliders...' he said, adding that he’s personally written to the company 14 times over this matter without receiving a reply.
Ends
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Don't ask me to square the circle containing the CWC statement given above and the 1 February news item; ask them to do it!
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