Tag Archive for: Charter

What is the BCS royal charter?




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Be part of something bigger, join the Chartered Institute for IT.


‘On 31 July 1984, Her Majesty the Queen was pleased, by and with the advice of her Privy Council… to accede to the humble Petition of the Company praying that ‘We should constitute a Corporation incorporated by our Royal Charter…’’

Since then, as the holders of the royal charter for computing, we’ve worked with organisations, government and individuals to raise standards address the challenges facing our profession.

What does chartered status mean for BCS?

Having chartered status means we’re leading the industry and responsible for building a skilled, diverse, inclusive and ethical IT profession that delivers a safe digital future for society.

At the core of our charter is the declaration that everything we do should be to ‘promote the study and practice of computing and to advance knowledge and education therein for the benefit of the public.’

It gives us the power to ‘establish and maintain appropriate standards of education and experience for persons engaged in the profession of Computing.’

This means we promote safe and positive interactions with tech, for all. This is summarised in our motto, ‘Making IT good for society’.
Today that means we shine a light on big issues such as the persistent gender gap in computing education or the value of professional standards in cyber security, as well as working with our members to support events such as Pride month.

Read the full Royal Charter here.

The BCS royal connection

HRH Prince Edward, Duke of KentPrince Edward, Duke of Kent has been Patron of BCS since 1979 and in 1982, BCS’ silver jubilee year, he became president of the organisation.

Our jubilee year was also known as ‘Information Technology Year’ – or IT82. As Computing History reports, ‘recognising the huge potential of IT to transform almost every part of society, including business, health, and education, the British government joined the drive to make the whole country aware of these benefit.’

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Charter tries to convince FCC that broadband customers want data caps

Illustration of a water hose with Internet data trickling out of it, represented by 1s and 0s.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)

Charter Communications has claimed to the Federal Communications Commission that broadband users enjoy having Internet plans with data caps, in a filing arguing that Charter should be allowed to impose caps on its Spectrum Internet service starting next year.

Charter isn’t currently allowed to impose data caps because of conditions the FCC placed on its 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable. The data-cap condition is scheduled to expire on May 18, 2023, but Charter in June petitioned the FCC to let the condition expire two years early, in May 2021.

With consumer-advocacy groups and Internet users opposing the petition, Charter filed a response with the FCC last week, saying that plans with data caps are “popular.”

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Charter squeezes more money out of Internet users with new cancellation policy

Envelopes sticking out of the mail slot in a door with the text on the top envelope saying,

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Sean Gladwell)

Charter is making it more expensive to cancel its Spectrum Internet service, as it will begin charging customers for the full month after they cancel instead of providing a prorated final bill.

Charter broke the news to customers in the fine print of their latest billing statements. Stop the Cap reported the change yesterday, and we were able to confirm it on the May billing statement received by an Ars staffer in Texas who subscribes to a triple-play package with Spectrum TV, phone, and Internet service.

“Effective on or after June 23, 2019 and consistent with the Terms and Conditions of Service, Spectrum will no longer provide a pro rata credit for services sold on a monthly basis that are cancelled prior to the end of the current billing month,” the notice to customers says.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Biz & IT – Ars Technica

Charter Spectrum Keeps Mindlessly Jacking Up Its Bullshit Fees

When Charter Communications (Spectrum) proposed merging with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks in 2016, the company repeatedly promised that the amazing “synergies” would lower rates, increase competition, boost employment, and improve the company’s services. Of course like countless telecom megamergers before it, little if any of those promises actually materialized.

Instead, the company quickly set about raising prices to manage the huge debt load. And its service has been so aggressively terrible that the company recently almost got kicked out of New York State, something I’ve never seen in 20 years of covering telecom. All the while, the company continues to not only jack up its standard pricing, but the sneaky fees it uses to advertise one rate, then charge users something else when the bill actually comes due.

We’ve noted for some time how cable providers over the last few years have added a “broadcast TV” fee to customer bills. Such a fee, which simply takes a part of the cost of programming and buries it below the line, lets cable providers advertise one rate, then hit customers with a higher bill. It’s false advertising, but you’d be hard pressed to find a regulator anywhere in North America that gives much of a damn about the practice, be it in telecom, cable TV, the airline sector, or anywhere else. Culturally, American “leadership” appears to view such fees as the pinnacle of capitalistic creativity.

So it just keeps on going. The Los Angeles Times notes that Spectrum is informing its already angry customers that they’ll soon be facing yet another $ 2 monthly hike in the company’s broadcast TV fee, on the heels of another hike just last fall. The fall hike bumped the fee 12% to an additional $ 8.85 per month. This latest hike bumps it another $ 2 (20%) to $ 12 per month. And again, this is just for the cost of programming, something you’re supposed to have already paid for in your base, above the line bill.

All told, the company nets quite a significant profit from this tap dance, notes the Times David Lazarus:

“That 20% fee increase means big bucks for Charter. The company reported Thursday that it had just over 16 million residential pay-TV subscribers as of the fourth quarter of last year.

Hitting up each of them for an extra $ 2.04 a month means Charter, the country’s second-largest cable company, will be raking in an additional $ 391 million in annual revenue, on top of the tens of billions of dollars it already earns.”

Keep in mind, this is a company facing unprecedented competition by cheaper, more flexible streaming alternatives. In a functioning, healthy market, you’d either have competition or moderate regulatory oversight applying some pressure to protect consumers. But telecom, cable, and broadband is far from healthy. It’s a coagulation of natural broadband monopolies that also sell video, but have such entrenched power over state and federal lawmakers (aka regulatory capture), efforts to actually protect consumers from this nonsense wind up being few and far between in most states.

Until we see somebody in a position of regulatory authority actually crack down on this obvious practice of false advertising, it’s pretty clear American leadership’s breathless dedication to things like transparency and consumer protection are just empty lip service. Whether we’re talking about hotel resort fees or the laundry list of annoying airline fees, we’ve culturally embraced the idea that false advertising and nickel-and-diming captive customers is not only ignored but actively encouraged. Somebody wake me up when that changes.

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