Mea Megathread

[ManxWarrior]

1.  ManxWarrior, Chinahand, Bloom etc.

 

2.  Disgraced former MEA Directors

 

 

Are they related by any chance?

 

I think we should be told

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Virginia P, please be assured that I have NO connection to the MEA, MEA former board or any other member of this forum. I am not a bean counter, lawyer, banker or any other profession of that type. I am a member of IoM Public Co Ltd and taxpayer who sees the total wastage of a national asset like the FOC being orchestrated by a private company for their own market position and profits(MT). All information I have presented is PUBLIC DOMAIN, obtained by simple Google searching no more no less. My part in this is of simple association and clear presentation of that information. If other forum members wish to pursue my line of thought, then that’s fine by me. The starting point for my whole argument was the Standing Committee Report; the other items are simple spin offs from there. I have never mentioned the PKF Report because its concerns money and is produced by bean counters, but I’ll have a look. My comment generally about any report by any consultant is to firstly to look who pays them. He who pays the Piper calls the tune. then one looks for the bad news their employed to disseminate.

 

Our Politicians like to glibly talk of e-business and e-commerce but it is a double edged sword and they have never faced the heat from it. The Establishment here controls the traditional media outlets like radio & newspapers but it can’t control the new Internet media. It’s about time our politicians and civil servants woke up to this fact and started to conduct more open and honest government.

 

I assume that you are in fact a member of the establishment or on the payroll of Manx Telecom. I challenge YOU to identify yourself.

[Gladys]

Butterfly, couldn't agree with your last post more! I keep banging on about something fundamental having changed to bring about such a dramatic turn of events. What was it and who is responsible?

[ManxWarrior]

In reply to 1, as concrete said RIPE will discourage the use of static IPs, which means that MT would have more likelihood of being turned down next time they go to buy more IP addresses.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It’s a fact that some UK ISP’s do offer static/fixed IP addresses.

Typically look here. Note the offer of Static IP, 2mb service for £11.99 /month.

 

How can they offer fixed IP? Well have a look at the: Ripe Policies Document.

ASSIGNED PA: This address space has been assigned to an End User for use with services provided by the issuing LIR. It cannot be kept when terminating services provided by the LIR.

and for a clear definition of services:

End Users requesting PA space should be given this or a similar warning:

Assignment of this IP space is valid as long as the criteria for the original assignment are met and only for the duration of the service agreement between yourself and us. We have the right to reassign the address space to another user upon termination of this agreement or an agreed period thereafter. This means that you will have to re-configure the addresses of all equipment using this IP space if you continue to require global uniqueness of those addresses.

Clearly we are not talking about the length of time an end user is logged in. The rule is that such an IP is non transferable unlike a fully registered IP of the type which MT have used to date. It follows reasoned logic too because an ISP must ideally have a one to one relationship between broadband users and IP addresses, so its no detriment to them to offer a static IP. Its not small companies manipulating the rules either because OneTel also offer fixed IP and are part of Centrica PLC who also own British Gas etc.

 

It is my view that MT have yet again manipulated the rules to their own financial gain. Please go back to your employers and point this out to them - Thanks.

[ans]

Note the offer of Static IP, 2mb service for £11.99 /month.

 

Note the download limit of 2gb per month and the £1.75 charge per extra GB per month. You do realise you would eat a 2gb limit in less than 3 hours on a 2mb line?

 

According to my stats from my server box here, which handles all my file downloading and uploads (and obviously doesn't include web browsing and misc stuff from the other clients on the network), if I was on that package, I'd have had to pay over £150 for July.

[ManxWarrior]

Note the offer of Static IP, 2mb service for £11.99 /month.

 

Note the download limit of 2gb per month and the £1.75 charge per extra GB per month. You do realise you would eat a 2gb limit in less than 3 hours on a 2mb line?

 

According to my stats from my server box here, which handles all my file downloading and uploads (and obviously doesn't include web browsing and misc stuff from the other clients on the network), if I was on that package, I'd have had to pay over £150 for July.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The subject here is the fixed/static IP that Alias raised not the price of Broadband you have quoted out of context. Maybe MT should consider a limited service? If they had some vision they perhaps would have done it and more people generally could have access to the service.

 

Seen to be advertising paragraph removed 16/Aug/05.

Sorry Ans

[ManxWarrior]

Looking back over the MEA forum re – the financial side, I would agree with Chinahand that the Enron collapse must have a devastating effect on the whole project. Sub-contractors must have been on-site and preparing to go to other employment. I’ve been in similar situations and one must just fire-fight to hold it all together. That’s what Chinahand is pointing out, monies had to be raised quick and it must have been needed like yesterday, to keep contractors onsite and sweet. Sorting out the contracts must have been a nightmare, how that’s done legally would be down to you lawyers. The essence here is speed and I can’t see the IoM Government able to react so fast although I suspect they were fully aware of the problems and borrowings that had to be made.

 

Enron was in the top ten of largest companies in the world and in the process of building tens of power stations nearly all of which are still unfinished to this day. Perhaps it’s a credit to the MEA and Mike Proffitt the IoM doesn’t have a £100million white elephant on its doorstep. Mike would not have got his arse kicked if he’d called a halt to it there and then in December 2001. He battled on and to his credit the IoM power station was one of the very few Enron gas turbine stations ever finished. Perhaps we should be treating Mike has a local hero?

 

Ok, hawks can always dig up s**t on anybody, then start throwing it around, politicians are good at this especially in the IoM where they have control of the media; they’re already applying themselves in nit-picking over the legalities to further there own political agendas.

 

Witness the headline news in the Manx Independent of Friday August 12, 2005 – MEA Jobs Threat. (I won’t mention about that chunky lady sucking manx knobs). What a smoke screen (the job threats that is), one assumes that Eddie Teare is in Alan Bell’s pocket here. Threatening job cuts is an old chestnut that can be brought out at any time. The real meat is the realisation of the level of nit-picking going on digging s**t on the legalities side and the final paragraph:

But Mr Bell said the cable had moved up the political agenda and admitted one option being considered was whether the MEA should continue to operate the cable or whether it should be put out to tender.

 

Mr Bell wants the FOC sold, no-doubt to our friends, just like I've already said on several occasions.

[Alias]

Do you really think landline services are a high earner for MT anyways? People use landline services for off-peak calls and dialup and not much else. Seeing as there are more mob lines in use than fixed liners, I don't think MT will sob too much if you just pay them line rental and nothing else.

 

There's not much MT offer that you can't buy with someone else (albeit more expensively).

 

And no, I don't work for MT. If you want to make more allegations about our identities perhaps you'd like to reveal more about yourself (don't hear much about Mrs Profitt)....

[ans]

The subject here is the fixed/static IP that Alias raised not the price of Broadband you have quoted out of context.

 

If the price is out of context, why did you include it in your original comment? As you referred to it to begin with, it's within context.

 

I'm not going to be drawn into a debate over this as I don't know anything about the FOC situation, what the current agreements are and what the proposed solutions are. My only two contributions to this thread have been to query your fantasy maths and to point out that a deal you've posted as an example of a great deal isn't so great after all. You would have been better comparing the 2mb Unlimited Broadband package from that very page which is £34.99 and still considerably cheaper than the MT product. But I guess that wouldn't have sounded so impressive eh?

 

You're a sockpuppet.

[kellyiom]

for what it's worth, I think ans has a really good point; not taking anything away from the overall monopoly thing, it can be quite difficult making a like-for-like comparison of broadband; i had a mate over staying with me and he used my basic broadband on his wireless and he said over a week it was pretty good, better than the one he was using in london, which although cheaper, had lots more contention and was slower. It only takes a couple of glitches and tech support calls at premium rate and the overall costs rise.

 

I hope the posters on this thread keep banging stuff on here because I think it's insightful; as we're migrating towards a kind of 'MEA Board Sacrificial Lambs' theory, does anyone know if the type of alleged interference in the MEA business plan would contravene any EU antitrust legislation?

[Tugger]

I'm not convinced the MEA board can have reasonably concluded that they did nothing wrong. IIRC, they received two conflicting pieces of legal advice: the first, from an English QC, suggested that the subsidiary was subject to the same borrowing restrictions as the MEA. The second, WHICH SPECIFICALLY SAID THAT NOBODY OTHER THAN BARCLAYS WAS ENTITLED TO RELY ON IT, was from Cains.

 

The MEA board decided that the Cains opinion, coming as it did from a Manx advocate (whose is clearly going to be more authoritative than a mere English Queen's Counsel), should be relied upon, notwithstanding the fact that it specifically said that they could not rely upon it.

 

To be fair, unless there is a case law precedent which is bang on point, it is entirely reasonable for two lawyers to come to two opposing, but still reasonable, conclusions, i.e. one of them might be wrong, but justifiably so. If someone is actually going to apply to the courts for a ruling on the legality of the loans, that will clear up a lot of things. Personally, my views are in line with Cains, but if I had a QC telling me otherwise, I'd be making DAMNED sure that I too had an opinion from Cains which I was entitled to rely on

[Chinahand]

In reply to Tugger:

 

One: MCC had already borrowed £35 million in 1999, two years before the english QC produced her legal "note" - it wasn't a legal opinion.

 

Two: Treasury and Tynwald had seen and approved the MEA accounts including the £35 million MCC loan in the 1999 and 2000 accounts as it was drawn down prior to the legal note.

 

Three: The strongest doubt the QC's note expresses was the power of the MEA to give guarantees and she said this power would depend upon the structure of the contracts. The MEA went on to take advice and did provide guarantees for its contracts with such large companies as GE etc.

 

Four: The English QC's note was given in January 2002. The legality of the contractural guarantees weren't queried by the companies that novated the contracts from the bankrupted Enron subsidiary Nepco to the MEA company PGT; nor were they queried by Treasury or Tynwald when they debated the MEA in 2002 and 2003.

 

Five: The first Cains opinion was produced in July 2003. At this time the MEA were as hard up for cash as you could imagine: hence the emergency loans! The process for obtaining the loans had been totally open; Barclays had fully divulged the Cains opinion to the MEA.

 

I am absolutely certain that the old MEA board now wish that they'd wasted the odd thousand pounds going out and getting a repeat of the Cains opinion from someone else, but they had absolutely no reason to suppose they'd be any problems; I'm as certain as I can be that the English QC's note wasn't even thought relevant; all the issues it'd raised had been dealt with years before hand.

 

What areas of the QC's note were outstanding; the power to take out loans: the power to give guarantees? Both had been covered previously?

 

Or am I missing something? I can't see it! Other than the fact they didn't waste even more money getting a second opinion which they had every reason to believe would be identical to the opinion they already had.

[ButterflyMaiden]

A question to Chinahand ..

This is becoming really technical on the one hand and deeply analytical on the other. I for one am beginning to lose the plot ! Can you help me out ?

Are you saying the MEA business plan would have generated sufficient revenue to cope with the debt finance the formar Board obtained ?

Are you also saying the current problems are the result of intervention by DTI or Treasury as a result of lobbying by a third party ?

I hope you are ..otherwise I have misunderstood the entire thread !!

[Lonan3]

A question to Chinahand ..

This is becoming really technical on the one hand and deeply analytical on the other. I for one am beginning to lose the plot ! Can you help me out ?

Are you saying the MEA business plan would have generated sufficient revenue to cope with the debt finance the formar Board obtained ?

Are you also saying the current problems are the result of intervention by DTI or Treasury as a result of lobbying by a third party ?

I hope you are ..otherwise I have misunderstood the entire thread !!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That was the impression I had as well, BM. I just wish someone would take the trouble to explain it simple terms for a simple soul like myself!

[celtic]

I was told that the Electric Authority (MEA) has been prevented by Manx Government Authorities in realising its plans for internet access to private individuals. That report Manx Warrior referred to earlier on, recommends the Ministers to light the cable etc.

 

The MT license does not give MT exclusive rights from competition. The Electric Authority seems to be restricted and the reasons why are not being properly explained.

 

I was also told the MEA is under the control of the Manx Ministry of the Department of Training and Industry. (DTI) Why are they not fighting for the MEA?

 

MT apparently provides a good service to the Isle of Man but a bit of competition to a monopoly private offshore owned interest would not be harmful. After reading the Standing Committee on Economic Initiatives 2004-2005 I think the Manx Government should follow the recommendations in it.

 

If you look at the MEA website it contains interesting stuff that can be introduced through wires to every householder as well as energy. This web site is very interesting for those who may wish to look at it.

 

http://www.gov.im/mea/telecoms.xml

[Gladys]

Celtic, please see my post of 11 Aug (can't get the techno to work to move it here). Throughout this, I cannot believe that a company, statutory corporation or whatever with people that we must accept have some commercial nous can borrow from a substantial bank without some justification and a very credible business plan. Apart from the legality of the borrowing (and to a certain extent that is immaterial in this context), MEA or the borrowing subsidiary, must have put forward a proposition that demonstrated, on a pay back basis, the lending was viable. So what changed?

 

In my earlier post I recalled that the MEA was trumpetting the delivery of communications to all households through their cables. Not long after, MT was granted a licence renewal and then the MEA fiasco started. Am I niaive or has someone fouled up in "joined-up government"?