Archive for the ‘mobile phone’ tag
A Self Serving Apology from o2
As has been reported over the last few days, o2 have issued an apology to customers for the appalling performance of their network in London. I’ve been unfortunate enough to be an o2 customer for the last 18 months and it amazes me that it’s taken so long for this problem to be acknowledged. It’s just a shame that the only response so far is to say sorry.
My experience of o2 is, I’m sure, not an uncommon one. My iPhone is nothing more than an iPod on my walk between London Bridge and Old Street every morning and evening, and even at work during the day I can’t rely on it. Sometimes the phone will ring and then drop or scramble the call sometimes it wont right and I’ll be alerted to a new voicemail for a call I never recieved – if I’m lucky this will happen straight away, if I’m not so lucky I won’t get the message for 4 or 5 days. Once in a while the phone rings, I answer it and actually have a conversation.
In the original article from the Financial Times, head of o2 Richard Dunne mentions that the problems are mostly confined to London (we’re lucky like that in London) and outlines their three step approach to making things better. To me, their grand plan strikes me as a list of “things we forgot to do”. Surely continuing to optimise your network (step one) and upgrading your infrastructure (step 2) are things any network should be doing – especially when you get an 18 month exclusive on the biggest mobile device ever. I really can’t understand why it’s taken so long for o2 to hear the annoyance of their customers, especially when their resident twitterer works so hard to keep people happy.
The main thing that struck me about this apology was it’s timing. Call me cynical, but it seems to me this is nothing more than an attempt to placate some of the legion of subscribers they stand to lose to other networks now the iPhone exclusivity is over and contracts are starting to expire. For me, it’s much too little, much too late.
I’ve been forced to tolerate their shoddy network for 18 months and even defended them in the past, fully expecting them to step up and get things sorted. Instead, things got worse.
My contract is up in a week or two, and I’ll be off to another network, I look forward to having a nice reliable phone again… but at least o2 are sorry, right?
