Barry Fox

To update the old song from Li'l Abner - the country's in the very best of hands. Not. This year, like last year and the year before that, I received an invitation from a market research company.

It is employed by BT to "help gain an understanding of its reputation with key audiences" and interview "key opinion leaders" on their "perceptions and experience of BT". My involvement would be a "vital part of an important consultation process".

Thanks for the flattery, but this year, like last year, I made what I reckon is a very reasonable suggestion. If BT wants to interview self-employed people like me, then it should make a donation to charity for the time spent.

And this year, as last year, the suggestion was rejected. The refusal came from the top, BT's executive director Ben Verwayen. In a courteous personal reply he explained: "We compared participation based on studies in the UK and the US between interviews with and without donations. We decided against it based on the outcome."

So I never did get the chance to tell BT a few useful things privately. Here they are publicly.

Shortly after writing a column about the difficulties of using BT's Openzone, I went to Paddington station during the week BT was offering free Wi-Fi access to try and arouse public interest.

Intel had a demo booth on the concourse, with adverts promoting Openzone. But all Intel's laptops were running with the Swisscom Eurospot network. Why? Because there was no Openzone signal on the Paddington concourse.

"A BT manager came visiting yesterday and seemed surprised," the frustrated Intel demonstrator told me.

I have been using BT's Phone Disc CD-Rom since the days when it cost over £2,000. The price is now down to around £40, but you need to be a detective to find out how to buy it. (The secret number is 0800 833 400).

For as long as I can remember BT's software has fallen over when the PC defrags the hard disk. This moves the licence file that stops people looking up too many numbers. The latest version of Phone Disc was supposed to solve the problem.

Does it heck. BT still has to fund a helpline to help people delete the corrupted file and install a new one to get Phone Disc working again. "Some people never have the problem," a puzzled BT help-worker told me. "But others have it a lot."

Yes BT, it's because some people never bother to defrag their hard disks. If the 42-digit licence code used for Office XP can survive defragging, why can't BT's software?

When Ofcom, the huge new quango that replaced dozy Oftel, the aloof ITC and secretive Radiocommunications Agency, took over, I had high hopes that we might finally get a watchdog with teeth. I had even higher hopes when Ofcom announced that there would be a Consumer Panel, to act as Ofcom's 'critical friend'.

The Consumer Panel is chaired by Collette Bowe who used to work for the DTI, and then "as a full-time executive at the most senior levels in the fund management business, City regulation and Whitehall".

Other members include the boss of an advertising network, the head of a management consultancy, the managing director of a marketing development consultancy, a strategy adviser at the Communication Workers' Union, a non-executive director of the Nationwide Building Society and a venture capitalist on the Welsh Development Agency Board.

When challenged on how likely it is that her line-up will help consumers, Bowe said: "No way are we insulated from the problems of consumers; we live with them, and you can be sure we will be drawing on our personal experiences."

The panel's first public utterance was to "welcome" a report from "friend" Ofcom on switching off analogue TV and giving the government released frequencies to sell.

A good way to check whether people who talk about switching off analogue TV know what they are talking about is to listen to what they say about the tens of millions of VHS VCRs in homes round the country.

Ofcom buries this key issue in a short section deep in the 100-page report, with no mention in the summaries which are all most people will read.

Consumers will "either have to convert their video recorders or purchase new recording devices with integrated digital tuners", says Ofcom.

How do you convert an analogue VCR so that it works with its internal timer and external mpeg decoder? With considerable difficulty!

Where do you buy a VCR that internally decodes digital broadcasts or records the raw mpeg data? Ofcom admits that these "are only currently available in limited numbers" but reassures that "more models are being released and prices are falling".

So I asked Ofcom where I could buy a VCR with digital tuner. After five years of digital TV the only one available is from Daewoo. Few people know about it. Allegedly QVC sold it for £160, three times the price of a budget VCR. But it has now disappeared from the QVC listings.

Ofcom admist that it "has not heard of any plans by other manufacturers to follow Daewoo's lead". Nevertheless, it is still planning for digital switchover to start in 2007 as a way of forcing people to buy digital TV hardware.

With a watchdog and critical friend like this, consumers can sleep easy in their beds. Not.

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