[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

Spot on post, I agree 100%, just a bunch of moaning, whinging, wusses grubbing about for a few quid, does my head in.

Sounds like the Giffgaff spammers after their referral fivers posting them in forums everywhere.

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Sounds like the Giffgaff spammers after their referral fivers posting them in forums everywhere.

Wouldn't even know how to get a referral and anyway, I've very lucky and I'm not short of a few bob as they say so a fiver is worth nothing really too me. However, if your short of a fiver PM your address and I'll pop one in the post to you.

As a prime GG/O2 basher and pusher of 3 you must feel like all your birthdays came at once when the network failed lol

I'm serious about the fiver, have a pint on me.

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

Wouldn't even know how to get a referral and anyway, I've very lucky and I'm not short of a few bob as they say so a fiver is worth nothing really too me. However, if your short of a fiver PM your address and I'll pop one in the post to you.

As a prime GG/O2 basher and pusher of 3 you must feel like all your birthdays came at once when the network failed lol

I'm serious about the fiver, have a pint on me.

A lot of people here like to bash 3, and in some cases with good reason. However they haven't had 14 outages in 3 years.

[toyotacity]

But at least when you ring o2, you can understand them, they can understand you, when you ask them something it's done

I had a hell of a time with 3, their customer services was absolutely abysmal, couldn't even grasp simple instructions and just floundered when it came to thinking outside of the box

People complain about bashing 3, but yet I see incessant o2 bashing by the previous poster

Don't get me wrong o2 are far from perfect, but i've never had any problems with 3g signal, i've got signal everywhere i've been, and I was only affected by the outage for a couple of hours

and they do data over 2g....not something 3 do is it?

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

A lot of people here like to bash 3, and in some cases with good reason. However they haven't had 14 outages in 3 years.

Yep, but then O2 at least gives you a signal of some sort most of the time, more than 3 does lol, within a 25 mile radius of me the 3 'outage' is pretty much most days

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

Yep, but then O2 at least gives you a signal of some sort most of the time, more than 3 does lol, within a 25 mile radius of me the 3 'outage' is pretty much most days

Great idea, lets turn the thread into another O2 vs 3 thread to deflect attention away from the 14th O2 / GG outage in the last 3 years.

[DarthFader]

Not an O2 customer myself but I would wait until I was out of contract and talk to retensions and say the outage was one of the reasons for leaving, they may give you a better deal. More leverage then when in contract.

Saying that it wasn't as if it lasted a week.

PJ

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Great idea, lets turn the thread into another O2 vs 3 thread to deflect attention away from the 14th O2 / GG outage in the last 3 years.

You pop up on every single O2 or giff gaff thread and you don't like it if 3 is slagged off in anyway.
http://www.solutionconsultants.co.uk...dband-services

If I see O2 or giffgaff in a thread title, I know you will be there lol, your so predictable

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

You pop up on every single O2 or giff gaff thread and you don't like it if 3 is slagged off in anyway.
http://www.solutionconsultants.co.uk...dband-services

If I see O2 or giffgaff in a thread title, I know you will be there lol, your so predictable

Same in reverse? and

I pop up in a lot of threads. We all have our opinions and we're entitled to them. This is a discussion forum, I have posted facts and opinion.

It's fact that O2 /GG has had 14 outages in 3 years and is the mobile network that has the worst record for service outages - AND it's on topic for this thread unlike the deflection attempts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...nals-tags.html

G4S were affected because they couldn't monitor criminals with tags.

Boris's bike scheme couldn't accept credit card transactions.

Many small businesses who use wireless credit card transactions like outdoor companies won't have been able to take payments.

I'm sure businesses will be asking for money back for the 25 hour outage.

[Gary_Levine]

deleted

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Same in reverse? and

I pop up in a lot of threads. We all have our opinions and we're entitled to them. This is a discussion forum, I have posted facts and opinion.

It's fact that O2 /GG has had 14 outages in 3 years and is the mobile network that has the worst record for service outages - AND it's on topic for this thread unlike the deflection attempts.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...nals-tags.html

G4S were affected because they couldn't monitor criminals with tags.

Boris's bike scheme couldn't accept credit card transactions.

Many small businesses who use wireless credit card transactions like outdoor companies won't have been able to take payments.

I'm sure businesses will be asking for money back for the 25 hour outage.

You seem to have a real bug in you about O2, why ? Not that I care lol. Whats the fixation with 14 outs in 3 years? so what, at least you get more data coverage with O2 even if only at 2g than 3 will provide you with just now. Do you work for 3? tell the truth now lol

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

You seem to have a real bug in you about O2, why ? Not that I care lol. Whats the fixation with 14 outs in 3 years? so what, at least you get more data coverage with O2 even if only at 2g than 3 will provide you with just now. Do you work for 3? tell the truth now lol

This thread is about O2. Do you or do you not accept that 14 outages in 3 years is bad?

A 25 hour outage last week just 14 days after yet another 24 hour outage of text messages. Please discuss the topic rather ran personalising.

There are serious questions to be asked about the reliability, especially given that they are the Olympic provider, giving the athletes phones and service throughout the village.

Last week G4S couldn't monitor offenders for 24 hours via the tagging system. Boris's bikes didn't accept credit card payments. 1000s of business were impacted.

[AntiDote]

....and last week thousands of Facebook statuses went untouched. Absolutely unforgivable. Still no more than a day or so line rental should be refunded.

[wilt]

Originally Posted by AntiDote

....and last week thousands of Facebook statuses went untouched. Absolutely unforgivable. Still no more than a day or so line rental should be refunded.

I agree about the line rental - but mobile phones were commercially available around 21 years before Facebook was invented, it is a bit silly to suggest that, suddenly, this is all they are used for...

[AntiDote]

Originally Posted by wilt

I agree about the line rental - but mobile phones were commercially available around 21 years before Facebook was invented, it is a bit silly to suggest that, suddenly, this is all they are used for...

Oh I'm not saying they are, but some people are demanding compensation just because for some of them, their service went down for a few hours. As I've said before if they can prove they lost out financially then I suppose a case could be made that O2 should refund/credit them those costs.

However if as other people are suggesting, compensation should be paid out because they couldn't text a family member to wish them a happy birthday etc then you get to understand how silly our 'gimmee' culture has become.

[wilt]

Originally Posted by AntiDote

Oh I'm not saying they are, but some people are demanding compensation just because for some of them, their service went down for a few hours. As I've said before if they can prove they lost out financially then I suppose a case could be made that O2 should refund/credit them those costs.

However if as other people are suggesting, compensation should be paid out because they couldn't text a family member to wish them a happy birthday etc then you get to understand how silly our 'gimmee' culture has become.

Well it was a day, not a few hours.

I don't think it would be appropriate for O2 to arbitrarily decide who deserves extra compo or not - the fairest way is to either refund everybody the day or do something of similar value (which is what it looks like O2 will be doing, with their emphasis on making it up to customers in an 'O2 way').

[AntiDote]

It was a few hours for some people - I know of at least 4 people who had intermittent service and could use it for 3 or 4 hours at a time. I know the issue affected a great many others but it makes you wonder how many people had the full 24 hours or whatever as an outage.

I disagree that it should be the same for everyone. If someone genuinely lost out financially and that figure turned out to be say £200 then they should get that back. But for your average chav who couldn't get on Twitter or Facebook then it should just be a day's rental or whatever. Offering 1 day's line rental as a refund to someone who can prove they lost business or money in that time is not going to go down well. Perhaps something along the lines of across the board, O2 refund maybe 2 days' line rental or perhaps a free 15% extra top-up for PAYG customers.

Then alongside that, if someone can provide them with documented evidence that they lost money then O2 would at their discretion look at refunding them that amount.

[Thine Wonk]

The biggest concern for O2 must be that their business customers and potentially consumers will remember this (and any other issues) at contract renewal time. They are already fighting churn and spent 33% of their operating costs last quarter on discounting and retention deals to keep customers that were going to churn which it revenues.

[wilt]

I'm not sure how it would be possible to prove that your loss is due to the downtime and the downtime only - besides, not everything important can be measured financially (indeed, for some important things, people could end up owing O2 money!). Do these people get nothing?

[AntiDote]

Originally Posted by wilt

I'm not sure how it would be possible to prove that your loss is due to the downtime and the downtime only - besides, not everything important can be measured financially (indeed, for some important things, people could end up owing O2 money!). Do these people get nothing?

This is why I think there should be an across-the-board refund of the downtime line rental or a bonus % top-up. If anyone then feels they have good cause to expect more from O2, each case should be submitted on its merit and evidence.

The problem is society has bred a culture of 'grabbers' - hence some people demanding compensation for not being able to text their children a 'happy birthday' - so there will always be people who will try to screw O2 for whatever they can get and this would be completely disproportionate to the 'loss' they incurred. O2 aren't just going to hand £20 notes out to whoever fancies one. Yes they have to try to repair their reputation but it has to make financial sense.

I'm sure there are ways people who genuinely lost out financially can prove it was down to them not being contactable during the outage for example, in which case they should submit such evidence for O2 to do something about it.

[wilt]

You're going down a long and complicated road by offering people differing amounts of compensation. Lets go with your birthday example but change it a bit - say a father was at work and couldn't be contacted when their pregnant wife went into labour and therefore missed the birth of their child. There is no financial loss here, but this is much more than a minor inconvenience - if we're giving people differing amounts of compensation, is this not up there with 'missed major business opportunity' rather than down there with 'couldn't text my child happy birthday'?

If you give everybody the same then you remove these difficult decisions.

[AntiDote]

Originally Posted by wilt

You're going down a long and complicated road by offering people differing amounts of compensation. Lets go with your birthday example but change it a bit - say a father was at work and couldn't be contacted when their pregnant wife went into labour and therefore missed the birth of their child. There is no financial loss here, but this is much more than a minor inconvenience - if we're giving people differing amounts of compensation, is this not up there with 'missed major business opportunity' rather than down there with 'couldn't text my child happy birthday'?

Playing devil's advocate here - how would O2 know the above scenario was genuine one? I doubt the NHS would have the time or inclination to confirm or deny he was at the birth. So how would O2 know that it wasn't the customer concocting a sob-story to squeeze as much out of them as possible?

Originally Posted by wilt

If you give everybody the same then you remove these difficult decisions.

If a plumber was waiting for the go-ahead to commence fitting a boiler which would have seen him paid £2000 but the customer couldn't contact him due to the outage and went to someone else, do you think the plumber would accept the same level of 'compensation' as someone who was given something by O2 for having to walk home from work as they couldn't call a taxi?

So as you suggest, should O2 compensate everyone the sort of amount the plumber would expect (thereby probably bankrupting themselves) or the sort of amount the person who missed a taxi would expect and thereby alienate people like the plumber who lost out on a lot more?

I get that people would feel angry for the loss of service and should rightly be refunded for the time they didn't have what they were paying for. But in this day and age of "I demand compensation" it would need to be proportionate. As I previously mentioned, a refund for the downtime and any further discretionary payment/credit/whatever on a case-by-case basis. This would be the only way to weed out the money-grabbers.

[wilt]

They wouldn't, however, neither would O2 know that the customer hadn't decided that £2000 was too expensive and was going to go to a different plumber regardless of the the downtime.

O2 should only reimburse for the time that the service was unavailable - even doing that is going above and beyond what is compulsory in the T&Cs. I think it is a little unreasonable to suggest that O2 should cover consequential loss.

[neo_wales]

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

The biggest concern for O2 must be that their business customers and potentially consumers will remember this (and any other issues) at contract renewal time. They are already fighting churn and spent 33% of their operating costs last quarter on discounting and retention deals to keep customers that were going to churn which it revenues.

Business customers will stay because overall O2 is reliable if only on 2G nationwide.

Compo? If you pay £1 a day rental then refund a quid or so.

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by neo_wales

Business customers will stay because overall O2 is reliable if only on 2G nationwide.

Compo? If you pay £1 a day rental then refund a quid or so.

That many outages in 3 years doesn't sound like they are reliable to me. They had 2 large-scale outages just 2 weeks apart in the last month both affecting 2G and 3G. A 25 hour network outage and a 24 hour SMS incident 2 weeks before that.