Talk:Freedom4 Communications

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] i'm not sure this page is entirely accurate

i know we had (and still have) pipex dial here in the uk before we got ADSL. Also webcache.dsl.pipex.com seems to point at a uunet box. Can anyone clarify the details of what happened? Plugwash 19:36, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

There's obviously some unresolved relationship between MCI/UUNET as owners of the old PIPEX, and the new PIPEX. Most of the domains are (pipex.net, .com, .co.uk) are still registered to MCI, and some IP address blocks are too. I'll try to find out more about this relationship and update if I can. Part of the problem is that Rickards obviously wants to portray his PIPEX as being the same company as the old Unipalm PIPEX but it appears that he may have simply bought out the dial-up business from MCI/Worldcom in around 1999, along with the PIPEX name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.42.15.34 (talk • contribs)
I've spoken with a senior manager at Pipex who has confirmed the accuracy of the article with regards to Rickard's buy-out of the dial business from MCI. There are contracts in place between MCI and Pipex to allow the use of the domain names whilst they are in a process of transition - apparently some internal systems in MCI inherited from the old Pipex operation are dependent on the domain names, and until these are fixed the domains can't be fully released to the "new" Pipex. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.42.15.34 (talk • contribs)

But this article doesn't mention anything about the new pipex doing dial at all. If he indeed bought the pipex dial buisness along with the pipex name that needs to be mentioned (preferablly with a source). Also your comments still don't explain why the web cache they tell thier users to use identifies itself as a UUNET box (although maybe thats just thrown in with a transit agreement or something) Plugwash 18:26, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is fair to brand this article as "disputed". The only contention is the details of the takeover which for commercial reasons are hard to find web-based evidence for.
I propose the following wording for paragraph 3 (that currently begins "Some time later") to settle the dispute:
In December 1998 David Rickards purchased the dial business from MCI, including the Pipex name. MCI continued to operate the pipex domain names and the use of some infrastructure. The new Pipex company went on to offer domestic broadband services reselling BT's ADSL product, rapidly gaining market share by competitive pricing. It was announced in October 2003 [...etc...]
I say December 1998 as the new Pipex company he used (registered number 3681511) was formed on 10/12/1998 so it is fair to assume that he would only go to Companies house and set up the new company if he was sure the deal with MCI was going ahead. Furthermore, by July 1999 Dave Rickards himself was posting Pipex official news updates to Usenet, see for example message 378a41c3.38460911@news.dial.pipex.com - I have been given the mandate to develop the PIPEX Dial service as MD (slightly odd wording, but I guess he didn't want to scare customers too much by telling them Pipex wasn't part of UUNET/MCI anymore.)
212.42.15.34 01:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
"reselling bts adsl product" is misleading. Afaict pipex are using bts adsl service to connect to homes but afaict are providing the onward connectivity to the internet themselves. Plugwash 21:37, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Technically then "reselling BT Wholesale's IPstream ADSL product" like all other ISP's in the UK at the time. I am led to believe that the only ISP using BT Wholesale's transit on the back of ADSL (their "Central Plus" product) is BT Retail. 212.42.15.34 12:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

David Rickards did indeed purchase the PIPEX Dial customers from MCI and formed PIPEX Internet Ltd to run the service. Prior to this he owned and ran a company called Highway Response which had contract with MCI to run the billing and sales for the PIPEX DIAL service. The meant that PIPEX Internet became a wholesaler of the MCI network. Because the old PIPEX domains were integrated with very old legacy systems, it took MCI many years to sort these out and hand over the ownership of the domains to PIPEX. The PIPEX Dial service was still run on the MCI backbone servers and slowly over several years, PIPEX built their own mail, news & web servers and migrated customers to these. Please note I am privvy to this information as I was one of the company directors from 1997 - 2003 and worked for Mr Rickards from 1995. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.251.12 (talk) 01:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "it aquired by" (who aquired who)

This phrase doesn't make sense to me. i presume it was mean to be either "it aquired" or "it was aquired by". i'd guess the latter but i don't wan't to change it without confirmation. Plugwash 21:45, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Changed to "merged". I have found a better description of the early history of Pipex which I will put in when I have the OK from the author. 212.42.15.34 12:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
I've updated the acquisitions and merges, there's serious overlapping in some places. --Hm2k (talk) 13:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] market position & power (actually spam?)

The recently added "analysis" of "market position and power" seems to be a spam by the "research" company "backchannel".

The text is littered with speculation and the accomanying heavily-branded chart is meaningless.

This section needs rewriting for objectivity or deleting. 212.42.15.50 22:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed now outdated speculation over BT/PIPEX acquisition. PIPEX market share of the Dedicated Internet Access market for corporates has not changed materially from Sept 2005. Hence the chart is still current and backs up the paragraph of text. Unsure of whether or not the TV commercial information is really true as there are no reinforcing links.
taken these figures out as they're quite old/out of date and added Thinkbroadband stats from 2007

I added information about the current Pipex advertising campaign on UK TV featuring David Hasselhoff together with a link to a website critical of his product endorsement and of Pipex products. I have personal knowledge of the site in question. Without mention of the critical website, which contains comments by a number of disgruntled Pipex clients, the article about Pipex reads like a long advert for the company and its products. With the inclusion of the website reference, it is slightly more balanced. The positive information still greatly outweighs the negative. John Donovan 12 Sept 2006

I note that someone subsequently deleted the information about the website critical of Pipex. It seems that this article is considered to be a PR platform for Pipex and is perhaps patrolled and protected on that basis. The information was then put back in, not by me.

Visited the Pipex article again on 24 Sept 2006. Information about the website critical of Pipex has again been deleted. Someone seems determined that this article must serve solely as a PR/Advertising feature for Pipex and edits the article accordingly. They would apparently prefer to have no mention of the current "King of the Internet" TV adverts featuring David Hasselhoff, than have reference to the related critical website. I will leave it to others to decide whether this is acceptable. John Donovan.

The site which is critical of Pipex should not be embedded as a direct link,. If anything, it should be marked as a source - put a reference that it has attracted criticism, then an external link at the bottom to back it up. Personally, I don't think that the site involved should even be added - it's an opinionated site which is basically a rant rather than an objective look, and has no place here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hakikev (talk • contribs) 11:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

There are four website links, all to sites critical of Pipex. A vast amount of information and evidence is displayed on the sites. No visitor to this article is compelled to click on any of the links to view the negative material. It they choose to do so, it might be because they have a genuine interest in reading what some Pipex users have to say so that they can form a balanced opinion. Surely the purpose of the article in not merely to provide a PR platform for Pipex. Does it not suggest that something a very amiss when four different individuals feel sufficiently aggrieved to take the time and trouble and spend money to set up the gripe websites. I cannot think of any other company which has generated so many gripe sites. If anyone takes the trouble to read the correspondence on the sites they will find that it is far from being a rant. Johnadonovan 22:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

maru (talk) contribs 04:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Pipex Customer Service

I removed the following:

However, Pipex is not necessarily one of the worst offenders in the UK telecoms market and the majority of anti-Pipex blogs and gripe websites (such as Poopex) have been set up by disgruntled current or former customers with a grudge and therefore may not mirror the level of customer service enjoyed by most Pipex clients.

There is evidence that customers loathe Pipex more than their competitors (the index listed). There's none that Pipex *isn't* the worst. Also, of course the anti-Pipex blogs have been set up by disgruntled customers. What, you expect them to have been set up by happy customers? This stuff is either obvious, or unsourced, so I removed it.

You might think that this is POV, but I had never even heard of Pipex until I found this article via RC. I live in the US, so they don't affect me at all. Novalis 22:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I reinstated the "Pipex customer service" section which was entirely deleted without anyone even explaining why on this discussion page. I have removed links which no longer function. --Johnadonovan 21:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing subjectivity

This article is subjective in its content about rumours and opinion on customer service. These references have been removed or edited, both from the point of view of removing blatent PR from Pipex and Wikipedia being used as a corporate bashing site from disgruntled customers. RR 12:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I have reinstated the section on Pipex Customer Service but in a shortened version removing personal opinion. The anti-Pipex gripe sites are a fact. Quotes about Pipex customer service are taken from reputable publications. I do not believe that it is appropriate for one person – especially one who is apparently not an administrator - to take it upon themselves to remove a whole section developed over time by several contributors. Some of the content was inappropriate but other parts are factual and verifiable as being such. Johnadonovan 22:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC) I have edited down slightly claims of pipexcommunications website being the "original" as this can't be backed up. RR 12:10, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


I have removed a paragraph which set out the personal opinion/POV of a contributor. They are of course entitled to their opinion, but POV is not allowed under Wikipedia rules. There must presumably be some evidence/research obtainable from a reputable verifiable source confirming the positive views expressed about Pipex Customer support. I will leave it to the relevant contributor to find the information and insert it in the article with appropriate source verification links. Johnadonovan 15:08, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tiscali pipex migrations

"This was done to both save money and provide the customers with a better service" This is currently stated as a fact with no attibutions as to who said it, nor any citations. If this is the party line of tiscali corporate then it needs to be clearly marked as such. Plugwash (talk) 22:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC)