BT 'gets angry' if criticised, says C&W boss

Do what? says BT

BT has been left scratching its head following comments made by Cable & Wireless (C&W) boss Francesco Caio last week at a telecoms conference in Edinburgh.

Caio questioned whether the creation of BT's new separate network access outfit - Openreach - would deliver the kind of "equivalence of behaviour and cost" demanded by regulator Ofcom following the completion of the strategic review into the UK's telecoms industry.

And he went further suggesting that BT does not like to be criticised by rivals, hinting that negative comments could make life uncomfortable for telcos and ISPs sourcing products and services from BT.

Caio said that C&W's broadband ISP Bulldog had complained that the service it received from BT was "not up to scratch," reported Scotland on Sunday.

"When I speak to colleagues in Bulldog [about the performance of Openreach], they say: 'We won't tell you because you tell the press and then people in BT get angry.'"

So, by Caio's own admission, staff at Bulldog appear keen to keep things from parent C&W, and people in BT get angry.

"We've no idea where that comes from or what that means," a mystified BT spokesman told us today. "We're doing all we can to enure that Ofcom and the industry are satisfied with the transparency of Openreach."

No one from Bulldog was available for comment at the time of writing. ®