Localtel Ltd, a UK subscription-free and toll-free internet access provider, is once again investigating its legal options after firing a string of allegations at BT. The Surrey-based telco says that BT has left stranded hundreds of customers wishing to transfer their accounts to Localtel, some losing certain features of their service, and some being cut off altogether.
Localtel’s screaming.net has signed up 90,000 users in two months, and says it is signing 1,500 new users every day. Last month LocalTel complained to industry regulator Oftel that BT delaying the transfer of customer records to LocalTel, while it readied its own free toll and access ISP service.
BT recruited extra staff to cope with demand, but Localtel claims that over 1,000 customers have lost services. The transferal process involves removing customer records from one database and putting them on one dealing with Localtel accounts. In some cases these records would appear to have gone missing, cutting off the customer altogether. In other cases BT input errors have resulted in additional services such as caller ID being disconnected.
Although BT and Oftel are evidently taking the allegations seriously, the very loud complaints from Localtel have diverted attention from the fact that its own service has been criticized by users. Newsgroups and web sites have already sprung up with the sole intention of complaining about the speed, accessibility and excessive red tape of the service. Last week Localtel circulated an email to users apologizing for leaving them unaware of the progress of their account transfer, and thanking them for their patience and tolerance. The firm admitted that the volume of inquiries it had received had jammed its switchboard and that it had been forced to upgrade its firewall and install new banks of cache server to speed the service up.
