[Börsenecke] Gewinneinbruch bei British Telecom

[Aka-Aka]

http://www.it-times.de/news/nachricht/datum/2008/02/07/gewinneinbruch-bei-british-telecom/

Zum Gewinneinbruch beigetragen hat offenbar der starke Rückgang von Einnahmen aus dem Mehrwertsektor.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ft/20080207/bs_ft/fto020720081219547176

British Telecom fell 9.8 per cent to 247¾p after third-quarter core earnings rose in line with forecasts, but revenues at the telecoms group missed expectations as lower growth in premium rate services offset strong growth from broadband and IT services.

Genauer quantifiziert wird das hier:

The company is being reported as having taken a £10million hit through the loss of premium rate P-TV traffic following a year of disruption to the services following newspaper reports of shady dealings and uncounted votes by TV companies and programme makers.

The carrier was not involved in the scandals surrounding the services, but did receive a fee from broadcasters and service providers for carrying the premium rate calls to the shows.

The downturn in premium rate P-TV traffic is also predicted to last ‘several quarters’ by the company as the P-TV industry fails to recover from the issues that have dogged it since last winter.

Im Zusammenhang mit dem Riesenskandal um "Opera Telecom", GMTV und den Betrug im mittleren zweistelligen Millionenbereich (in Pfund!), der im letzten Jahr zu einer Krise der Mehrwertdienste in UK geführt hatte (siehe hier, s.a. hier im Forum) wurde bekannt, dass Anrufe bei Gewinnspielen im Falle der Überlastung an eine von BT zur Verfügung gestellte Mehrwertnummer weiter geleitet wurden. Wer dort landete, zahlte, ohne überhaupt eine Gewinnchance zu haben.

http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/consumers/adjudications/default.asp?cmd=3&id=670

Dated this 24th day of September 2007
Background
Service Type : Competition
Service Number : 0906 8100 100; 81149

19. A further issue investigated by ICSTIS was the use of overflow platforms. The servers operated by Opera could deal with some 1,200 simultaneous callers, but at busy times as may as 10,000 viewers would call at once. The excess would be transferred to other handlers. In the later stages of the Competition, the entire overflow was handled on the RIDE platform operated by BT. No finalists were ever selected from the BT platform, yet the callers would be charged as usual. Entrants whose calls were transferred to the RIDE platform were therefore always disenfranchised.

20. A further allegation raised by a Mail on Sunday article of 29 April 2007 and investigated by ICSTIS was that for a period during February 2007 there were technical difficulties with the telephone lines, and accordingly all finalists were selected from SMS entries. It was accepted by Opera that from 8 February to 20 February 2007 all callers to the 090 number were transferred over to the BT RIDE overflow platform, which meant that the callers would still be charged but that they had no chance of winning. For the eight competition days in question only those entering by other means were selected as finalists. Viewers were not informed at any time during this period that those entering by telephone could not win.

(teils via T/S)