Loop Scorpio Limited
Consumer Code of Practice
1. The Purpose of this Code
We have produced this Code of Practice as part of our obligations
under the new telecommunications regulations that came in to force
on 25th July 2003. The overall purpose of the Code is to provide
consumers with a clear statement of the range of policies, services
and support activities that we offer. It is intended to provide
sufficient information for you, the consumer, to understand the
range of services available from us, and how to contact us whether
to obtain a new service, clarify our terms and conditions, obtain
support from us, or indeed to make a complaint.
2. Who We are
Loop Scorpio Limited is primarily a provider of broadband connectivity
and services. A common term used by such companies is that of “Internet
Service Provider” or ISP. However, that term can cover a very
wide variety of operations and as a result can lead to confusion.
An example of this is that we ourselves are occasionally asked whether
the customer will (in addition to us) still need to use an ISP.
A typical ISP will offer three basic services:
· Connectivity to the Internet
· A facility to send and receive of emails
· A facility to host a web site
For the large majority of consumers, their needs for the sending/receiving
of emails and for the hosting of a web site are not that onerous,
and thus perhaps the most important service is that of Internet
connectivity. This is where we, as a company, have also placed our
focus. We are not, therefore, in the business of offering mission
critical email and/or web hosting solutions.
Loop Scorpio Limited is a small, geographically focussed company.
We are based in Gloucester and have operations in both Gloucestershire
and Herefordshire. We primarily use our own self-provided infrastructure
in our areas of operation and this necessitates that we only offer
service where we can realistically support our infrastructure. This
is in contrast to the majority of ISPs who essentially resell services
over BT’s local access network and are thus able to offer
a “national” service.
We are a local company, offering local levels of service and support.
We will prosper or die on our ability to live up to (and hopefully
exceed) the rising expectations of our customers.
3. How to Contact Us
We offer a variety of means of contact, depending on your needs
at any point in time. The principal methods are detailed below:
Telephone
Our main telephone number is 01452 674 010
Email
For general enquiries you can email us on enquiries@loopscorpio.net.
In Writing
Should you wish to, or need to, contact us formally in writing then
please do so either to our head office address:
Loop Scorpio Ltd
Eastgate House
121-131 Eastgate Street
Gloucester
Gloucestershire
GL1 1PX
Or alternatively to our Registered Office address:
Loop Scorpio Ltd
6 Worcester Road
Ledbury
Herefordshire
HR8 1PL
4. Our Aims and Goals
Loop Scorpio aims to become a major local player in the provision
of broadband connectivity within the counties of Gloucestershire
and Herefordshire. Our goal is to provide our customers with broadband
connectivity that scales in a way similar to that of the PC industry.
To achieve this, we must sidestep BT’s local access network
and introduce our own infrastructure.
The use of our own local access infrastructure results in us being
able to offer a “community” network in addition to conventional
Internet access. Access to and across the community network will
not be constrained by the capacity of our “backhaul”
Internet connection, and will, we hope, encourage a new way of thinking
in terms of local, community connectivity and services.
5. The Services We Offer
The primary service we currently offer is a wireless-based broadband
Internet access service.
We also offer enhanced broadband Internet access services, though
the availability of these will typically vary depending on the state
of our network rollout at any point in time. “Enhanced”
in this sense can mean either:
· Improved access speed
· Lower contention ratios
· Dedicated wired access to our main Point of Presence in
that location (effectively bypassing the local wireless network).
For the dedicated wired access, we make use of either our own fibre
optic connections or fibre/copper local access circuits obtained
from Openreach.
6. Customer Service
Being a small company, we have to be realistic in the level of customer
service that we can support. Having said that, we are deliberately
focussing our rollouts on areas within around a 30 minute drive
from our head office in Gloucester. This is to help ensure that
the time-cost of us popping out to visit a customer is manageable.
Because we are locally based, many of our customers get to know
us personally, and know that we will help out where and when we
can either by telephone support or by a brief (and sometimes not
so brief!) visit to their premises. We do not have any set times
as to when support is or is not available – that will by necessity
have to wait until we have grown sufficiently to justify dedicated
customer support staff.
Sales Practices
We are building our customer base through the use of a variety of
techniques including:
· Local press advertising
· Internet site presence
· Targeted leafleting
· Referrals and word-of-mouth recommendations
· Occasional doorstep selling and telesales
Where potential customers indicate to us that they do not wish to
be directly contacted again we do our best to respect their wishes.
In addition, when undertaking telesales activities, the telephone
numbers called are screened using the Telephone Preference Service.
If you wish to register with them that you do not want to receive
“cold calls” by phone, then please visit their website
(www.tpsonline.org.uk).
Ordering our Services
Customers wishing to order our service should contact us preferably by email, or alternatively by phone
or in writing. The provision of our service is
always subject to a satisfactory site survey to ensure that a reasonable
level of signal can be received at the location. However, in many
cases we are confident enough to conduct the site survey at the
same time as the actual installation.
Service Cancellation
For our basic service we only operate a rolling one-month contract
with the monthly fee paid up in advance. Having said this, there
are a number of areas where we do need a longer-term commitment,
for example:
· Where the customer is “hosting” a node
· Where a dedicated circuit has been provided
Repairs
We will use our reasonable endeavours to fix faults as soon as we
can. However, we are not in a position to be able to offer specific guarantees
on either a time-to-respond or a time-to-repair.
Service Pricing
Up to date pricing on our standard services is available on the
web site, or can be requested by any of the normal contact means.
Billing
Our standard billing cycle is monthly in advance, payable by direct
debit. The installation/connection fee is payable as soon as the
service has been successfully installed and shown to be operational.
Should a customer cease to pay for the service, then we reserve
the right to charge interest on the overdue amount and/or to suspend/cancel
the service until the account has been brought up to date.
Complaint Handing and Dispute Resolution
We take all complaints seriously and will do what we reasonably
can to resolve the issue speedily and to the satisfaction of the
customer concerned. If you have an issue with any aspect of our
service, please email us or call us on (01452) 674 010 and we will do our best
to resolve it.
If at the end of this procedure you feel your complaint has not
been addressed properly, you can contact Ombudsman Services, our independent
dispute resolution Service.
Ombudsman Services
Communications
PO Box 730
Warrington
WA4 6WU
Website: www.ombudsman-services.org
Email: enquiry@ombudsman-services.org
Telephone: 0330 440 1614.
Ombudsman Services is an independent approved dispute resolution service and
is empowered to resolve customer disputes; we are committed to this
process. Ombudsman Services is approved by the communications regulator Ofcom.
If your complaint has not been resolved by us or our dispute resolution
agency, or you require further information on the role of Ofcom
see www.ofcom.org.uk or call
them on 020 7981 3040.
7. Customer Rights and Obligations
Your rights and obligations when using our services are detailed
in three documents, with the current versions available on our web
sites. The documents are:
· General Terms and Conditions
· Access Node Supplemental Terms and Conditions (only applicable
to “node” customers)
· Acceptable Usage Policy
Of these three documents, only two are relevant to most customers,
with the third applicable to “node” customers only (that
is, those customers who have agreed to host additional equipment
necessary for us to improve the rollout of our networks).
8. How We Communicate with Our Customers
We aim to communicate with our current and potential customers using
the most effective (and cost effective) means available. In practice,
the majority of direct (one to one) communication with customers
will be either via email or telephone. Where we wish to communicate
on a wider basis than this will tend to be done via news and/or
other postings on the most relevant web site.
In addition to the above, we are happy to support independent user-group
web site forums and will seek to keep ourselves conversant with
relevant posts – contributing ourselves as and when we feel
it is appropriate. However, we do not monitor new postings on these
sites with the same regularity as on our own sites.
This Code of Practice is in itself one of our methods of communication
with our customers, as it seeks to outline our business aims, the
services we offer, and what you should be able to expect from us
as your service provider. A copy of this Code is posted on our web
sites. However, if you would like us to post you a copy then please
do contact us via email, phone, or post and we will happily send
you one. If you would like to receive it in a particular format
(for example, a larger font size) then specify this at the time
of asking and we will endeavour to oblige.
9. Social Responsibility
External aerials
Being a wireless-based Internet service provider, we are aware of
the fact that we need to consider the visual impact of additional
aerials on buildings. To the extent practical and cost-effective,
we aim to minimise this impact, though clearly we cannot remove
it altogether.
“Always on” connectivity
One of the key advantages of a broadband Internet connection is
usually stated as being that it is “always on”. However,
with that key advantage comes the associated issue that the computer
could now be permanently accessible by people with either mischievous
or malicious intent. We always endeavour to emphasise to our customers
the importance of ensuring that their computers are adequately protected
from intrusion. On request, we can provide links to both free (for
personal use) and commercial software products that can provide
an invaluable “firewall” capability. We also encourage
customers that wish to connect multiple computers to strongly consider
the use of a hardware router/firewall.
“Unsuitable” content
In common with other Internet service providers, we are well aware
that not all content on the Internet is either suitable for, or
desired by, all users. Unfortunately, it would be neither practical
nor cost effective for us to currently provide a “filtering”
service to our users to screen out “unsuitable” content.
We will however, keep this under review, and may well introduce
such a service in the future with customers being able to opt in
or out as they deem appropriate.
Special Needs
Where our customers inform us of special needs regarding either
the installation of our service, or their ability to use it on an
on-going basis, we will use our reasonable endeavours to satisfy
those needs. Examples of this for our customers to consider would
be:
· Special positioning of the connection point inside the
house (perhaps at waist height rather than close to the floor)
· The use of a larger font for formal communications such
as invoices etc
10. Approval and Review of this Code
We will publish revisions to this Code of Practice as and when we
feel it will be necessary and/or beneficial. However, we also undertake
to conduct a formal review of the Code once a year.
If you have any specific comments on this Code of Practice, or would
like us to consider specific amendments, corrections, or improvements
in a future revision, then please do contact us.
11. Further Contact Information
Ofcom
Ofcom Consumer Representation Section
Riverside House
2a Southwark Bridge Road
London
SE1 9HA
Email: advice@ofcom.org.uk
Web site: www.ofcom.org.uk
Tel: 020 7981 3040
Ombudsman Services
3300 Daresbury Park
Daresbury
Warrington
WA4 4HS
Email: enquiry@ombudsman-services.org
Website: www.ombudsman-services.org
Telephone: 0330 440 1614.
Telephone Preference Service (TPS)
DMA House
70 Margaret Street
London
W1W 8SS
Email: tps@dma.org.uk
Web: www.tpsonline.org.uk
Tel: 020 7291 3320
