Thanks for that info. I only did a limited scan of their rollout schedule locally to see if I could spot a pattern

Maybe there is no pattern? BT never did understand their costs when I had dealings with them. My assumption they could design a rollout to maximise their profits was maybe a bit optimistic of me.

Perhaps it is just simply a pin in map somewhere? Nope that wouldn't work as it would hit mostly rural areas.

Be interesting to see how government end up working with them when they put public money in. Now that is going to involve some interesting accounting. I wonder how much BT can persuade the government is a reasonable rate for a BT engineer to connect a couple of wires!

I'm a campaigner for one of the 100% exchanges (Madingley).

I see BT have declared their winners and now there are 6. Cheats win after all then, as I simply don't believe after removing any dubious all 6 remained on the same %. Obviously did nothing to remove votes and those that have been honest have been penalised for it.

To win this competition we have mobilised a massive (and I do mean massive) effort to systematically encourage people to vote. We have invested many man hours, initially on background awareness campaigning (flyers, posters, banners) then attendance at local events (fayres, gala's etc) and finally into a crazy door to door campaign. This was backed up with a database that allowed us to record precisely which people we had spoken to on the doorstep, those who had already voted and those who hadn't. We were also able to see those who were out when we called and these addresses were targetted in second, third and fourth sweeps of the villages. We have knocked on, and spoken to the resident of, every house, garage and lean-to in the villages. Every one.

How do we get to a figure greater than 100% (or even equal to 100% - we had people who declined to vote)? We believe it's down to BT's data which is not quite correct. We had votes culled (oh yes, BT were checking all the votes) for addresses that we know to be valid (we spoke to the owner on their doorstep). We have kept records (and I know that other exchanges have too) to prove our votes are valid.

@kenb: I know that it's easy to call winners 'cheats' but I have to wonder whether you even bothered to do more than print a few leaflets. I'm sorry you feel you have wasted your money - if that's all you did then your assesment is probably correct. In essence this competition was about human effort, pure and simple - at times it felt like madness on the streets in the dark and deep snow. Have the good grace to acknowlege you were just beaten by a better organised and motivated team. Don't label us cheats tho...

Mark H

I expect there is a pattern but its not clear as in previous rollouts.

My 2 latest theories are there is a relation to affluency in the area and that they avoid areas with high concentrations of leased line customers.

Caxton is in my patch so I'll let you know what happens

You seem to assume I believe all those who took part in a campaign that reached 100% are cheats. I truly believe that many in the campaign teams put a great deal of effort into getting the votes in, both in the winning campaigns and others.

To get to 100%, or anything like it, is not normally going to happen, unless of course there was some form of 'pressure' applied to vote or 'else'. If pressure was applied then I imagine we would have already seen comments on here about pending prosecutions for harassment against those who didn't want to vote and kept being approached until they �agreed�.

For it to happen on six exchanges, particularly given the way the votes came in the last few days over the holiday period, is simply stretching credibility to far for me.

Again I am not saying it is the local campaigners that put in the votes but maybe someone locally was just a little too helpful on their computer for you. Your database would have made it easy to target the objectors for a quick vote on their behalf! (The whole idea of a database is interesting as I was advised that the DPA would apply if such a database were built for the campaign, but exact position depends on what data you hold.)

My campaign involved slightly more then printing a few leaflets and I don't think there is anyone locally who didn't know about it. If for no other reasons then there was a pink ribbon on every telegraph pole and lamp post in the village along with numerous banners! There are always people that object to anything. I met several canvassing and however eloquently you put your case they would have objected on principal, that�s assuming they even spoke to you in the first place.

Further, for instance, my father died in December after a long illness (sad but for the best after he had several strokes. He had a �good innings�). I assume there are seriously ill people in your area? Did you get their vote off their sickbed? What if they were in hospital how did you contact them? What if they couldn�t communicate? Unlikely to have six areas where none of this applied, all of which happened to be way ahead of other campaigns.

Either false votes came in, or BT got the number horribly wrong in some exchange areas. If the numbers were wrong how come the exact numbers of votes were cast in five cases? Aren�t BT as likely to have included unknown terminated lines as missed active lines?

If you change the scenario and it was declared 100% of people voted in a local election would you find the result credible? Political parties put a great deal of effort into getting voters out but 100% is unbelievable. I know elections aren't a great comparator, as it isn't simply a yes vote you look for on an online system, but the principal remains the same.

Personally I struggle to see how BT failed to get the numbers right. I spoke to people on the Infinity team with queries over a large military base in my patch, and other matters. They assured me the data came from Openreach, (person I spoke to claimed to work for Openreach), and not BT Retail. As Openreach have to know about every active line on the exchange difficult to see how they could get it wrong. LLU makes no difference to managing the individual copper cables out of the exchange as Openreach have to know it goes to an LLU box not their own kit.


The lack of info from BT currently is compelling for me. You don't go from 5 to 6 winners unless your systems are seriously flawed and you know you can't sort out the mess. As for the suggestion that BT will now look at the top 10 maybe that�s BT being nice, or maybe it is yet a further admission by them they know something went wrong. 75% was the qualifying line for discussions why change it after the event?


It may well be the top 6 would have won anyway. Difficult to say as the number of votes cast on the top campaigns put others off from trying. Their door to door experience was so different in their areas to make it pointless carrying on with their campaigns as they would never get enough votes. Maybe it was just local demographics, and not false voting, that initially made the leaders the leaders but the fact remains 100% was the end point and to me that isn�t credible.

Having raised the issue time to move on.

I was only really interested to help struggling SMB�s and was simply astounded when BT took no action over the incredible results being displayed on their website.

Keeping BT out of high speed internet locally may be a blessing in disguise. There are other options to be pursued and there is no guarantee BT/ISPs will actually be able to deliver on their fibre promises when people final switch to the service in large numbers. BT being BT I am sure a fair usage policy, with ever stricter rules will make the service less good then it seems.

I do however feel accountable to those who voted locally and spread the word. At the moment I have seen or read nothing to say that BT�s campaign didn�t go pear shape. I have to write an article for the parish magazine soon and need to explain how the race finished. At the moment my suggestion will be they look at providers other then BT Retail for their telecoms services, as BT haven�t cast themselves in a good light over this matter. Probably make no difference to BT retail but if enough people did it (350,000 votes cast) I imagine it would have some impact on them and they might think a little bit more before they organise campaigns based on dodgy IT systems.

In reply to a post by kenb:

Again I am not saying it is the local campaigners that put in the votes but maybe someone locally was just a little too helpful on their computer for you. Your database would have made it easy to target the objectors for a quick vote on their behalf! (The whole idea of a database is interesting as I was advised that the DPA would apply if such a database were built for the campaign, but exact position depends on what data you hold.)

Such happenings should come to light when BT do a follow-up approach for individuals to take on FTTx and find that they never registered.

Not sure BT can actually do that!

If you opted for no further communications when you voted then BT can't use the data for marketing purposes. I contacted the Infinity team at the start to confirm what their plans were for the data. They said they wouldn't contact anyone who opted out, which is what the opt out said I believe. I wanted to be sure as it made a difference to the wording I use in my local campaign, i.e. if you vote BT won't contact you.

Of course by wording the opt out like this it also made it very hard for BT to spot dodgy votes.

In reply to a post by kenb:

Either false votes came in, or BT got the number horribly wrong in some exchange areas. If the numbers were wrong how come the exact numbers of votes were cast in five cases? Aren�t BT as likely to have included unknown terminated lines as missed active lines?

If you change the scenario and it was declared 100% of people voted in a local election would you find the result credible? Political parties put a great deal of effort into getting voters out but 100% is unbelievable. I know elections aren't a great comparator, as it isn't simply a yes vote you look for on an online system, but the principal remains the same.

Personally I struggle to see how BT failed to get the numbers right. I spoke to people on the Infinity team with queries over a large military base in my patch, and other matters. They assured me the data came from Openreach, (person I spoke to claimed to work for Openreach), and not BT Retail.

????
I haven't been particularly interesetd in the Race to Infinity project as it doesn't affect us. I do agree that 100% of an unspecified population is idiotic, but not impossible due to exactly that lack of specification.

However on the specific point above, I don't see how someone on the Infinity team can possibly work for Openreach. Infinity is nothing to do with Openreach.

Again - without remembering the detail, in theory if BT Broadband wish to roll out Infinity to an exchange that doesn't have Openreach FTTC then all they can do after analysing the results, and bearing in mind they are the biggest customer of both OR and Wholesale, is request FTTC to be installed by OR and relevant backhaul be provided by Wholesale.

I can only report what I was told. if you sent in a email it went to BT retail initially but was then rerouted. The email itself isn't much use as it just says it came from BT but doesn't state which area. the email address it came from was [email protected] which doesn't mean anything to me.


My query was quite specific and maybe that is why I spoke to somone in Openreach, or if he actually wasn't Openreach he spoke to someone who was. I still have the initial email and could contact the guy to confirm who he works for, but I am not sure what value that adds. The real detail of the actual query wasn't answered by him but by someone else in Openreach and then passed to me in a phone call.

Possibly I was mistaken, but I don't think so, as I was surprised at how much time they spent on the query. Two 30 minute phone calls and several emails internally to confirm.

When you organise a promotion like this I don't see how Openreach can't be involved. When BT retail opened the competition to everyone clearly their own systems weren't going to be able to provide all the data they needed.

My query related to a large university/military base in the village. Number of lines quoted for our exchange exceeded number of dwellings by a large margin so some, but not all, lines on base were being counted. I wanted to know which lines were in and which out so campaign could be targeted properly and keep to the competition rules. With hindsight I now realise I shouldn't have been so precise. I should have just got anyone with a direct dial line on the base to vote. I would have got loads of votes very quickly and just taken a chance on whether BT retail eventually through them out in the end. I guess they probably wouldn't, and even if they did the initial massive show of support would have helped to get others in the villages to vote to keep us high up the charts.

Strictly BT retail and Openreach are separate but in practise such divides never are perfect in a large company. Individuals have contacts on the other side of the fence and will use them I have found. Obviously puts other ISP's at a disadvantage but not much you can do about it. ISPs can raise queries with BT themselves, via account managers or such like, and their staff often have contacts in BT anyway.



As to how BT retail gets FTTC out there your method seems correct. Presumably BT retail pick up the bill if take up is way below that required to cover costs as there are some rules about ISP nominated exchanges and take up rates required to avoid costs being passed back.


I may be looking in the wrong places but can find very little that explains how BT decides which exchanges get which services. I would have thought a regulator would be all over them to make sure they want using their control of the exchanges to abuse the market in some way but maybe FTTx is too new for the regulator/government to catch up

Ken B

I concur with you 100%. We (Wingham Exchange, Kent) worked hard for votes (though it was like drawing teeth at times!) and a fat lot of good that did when you see that the top 6 got 100%. However the next nearest got "only" 78%. There were if you believe BT (which i do not) 360,000 votes cast in total so it would be interesting to know the statistical probability of the 6 wnners all having 100% and the next being more than 20% behind. This is classic BT scam, sham and even a scandal. We should have super fast broadband as a service by right. Though we entered the competition the whole process smelt of classic Soviet propaganda for BT was always like competing reluctantly for something that we pay for our through our line rental.
It is a bit like the government saying that the top 5 (or 6) county councils who win a competition will get free education and the rest can go jump.
This really is a national scandal
Geordie Hayward