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Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by stingraycharles on Sunday December 09, 2018 @02:48PM (#18642856)
This seems like a publicity stunt more than anything else. There's no way they actually lost 100MM here, and doing this ensures the public sees Ericsson as the real villain, and paints O2 as the victim.

It's a very clever strategy, nonetheless.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by jw1224 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @03:30PM (#18643083)
Just some dirty back-of-the-napkin numbers, but theoretically, £100MM doesn't seem unreasonable.

O2 have 25MM direct customers, plus another 7MM through reseller networks — so that's 32MM people directly affected by the outage.

Presuming O2 receives an average of £30 per customer per month (which I think is a reasonable estimate), that's £940MM/month, working out to £32MM per day in a 30-day month.

O2 are refunding customers 2 days' worth of service for the outage, so that would be £64MM in lost revenue.

Add on top of that brand and reputation damage — and other factors I've no doubt forgotten to include — and £100MM doesn't seem unreasonable.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ttty on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:02PM (#18644642)
I think you forgot that O2 won't lose that money because they never refund to their customers. But I might be wrong. So basically the clients lose the money.

Also average monthly can't be so high maybe you're including the device cost as well.

Remember that many might have prepaid and no contracts.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by cjallen88 on Monday December 10, 2018 @07:38AM (#18647425)
I'm with O2 and was affected, and they have messaged me promising credit of 2 days of my airtime bill.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by chipperyman573 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:06PM (#18643277)
What does MM mean? Google wasn't able to help.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by abdulhaq on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:08PM (#18643292)
Millions plural
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by davnicwil on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:55PM (#18643523)
Just to clarify - MM actually just represents 'million' where a single M represents 'thousand'.

The plural part of your definition here is not really relevant.. i.e. 10M = ten thousand, 10MM = ten million, 1M = 1 thousand (not 1 million, singular)

Most people colloquially seem to use k for 'thousand' and most people would probably intuit M as 'million', but I think people still go with MM for avoidance of doubt.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by 1999 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @06:56PM (#18644130)
It's the french system:

10M, ten thousand

10MM, ten million

10MMM, ten billion

here in sec. 3: https://www.druide.com/fr/enquetes/abréviation-de-million-et...

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ubernostrum on Sunday December 09, 2018 @08:49PM (#18644581)
One would think that a metric country would adopt "k"/kilo as the indicator for thousands and "m"/mega for millions.

Still I suppose it's better than sussing out whether someone is British and using "long" billions.

(in most of the world, "billion" = 10 to the 9th power; in older British usage still sometime seen, "billion" = 10 to the 12th power, and 10^9 is "thousand million")

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ahakki on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:09PM (#18644672)
Well they're french, so M stands for Mille (one thousand). MM is just a thousand squared, and MMM is a thousand qubed.

Once you understand this system you might also understand why the long system makes more sense.

  1000                 = Mille     M
  1000 000             = Million   MM
  1000 000 000         = Milliard  MM M
  1000 000 000 000     = Billion   MM MM 
  1000 000 000 000 000 = Billiard  MM MM M

in the short system the billion (nine zeros) has nothing to do with two. while in the long system it represents double as many zeros as the million. a trillion has three times the Zeros. -ard suffix? add 3 zeros
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ubernostrum on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:43PM (#18644804)
As someone who used to speak decent French, you will never convince me that the language is rational with respect to numbers. The sometimes-decimal/sometimes-vigesimal thing still makes my head spin all these years later when I hear numbers being spoken in French.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by Reason077 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:34PM (#18644776)
"Still I suppose it's better than sussing out whether someone is British and using "long" billions."

Britain does not use "long" billions. Not since the 1970s or so. Now days, billion always means 1000 million.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by beojan on Monday December 10, 2018 @08:55AM (#18647881)
Many other European languages, on the other hand, do use the long scale.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by Reason077 on Monday December 10, 2018 @10:21AM (#18648482)
That’s correct. But when speaking or writing in English, the English conventions should be used.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by xenonite on Sunday December 09, 2018 @07:12PM (#18644215)
And "M" dates back to the Roman number 1000.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by mey on Sunday December 09, 2018 @05:32PM (#18643719)
Never knew this, never seen it in my line of work. Thanks for the clarification.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by lovemenot on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:04PM (#18644650)
CPM in advertising. Cost per Mille (per one thousand views).
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by Reason077 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:31PM (#18644766)
In the US, UK, and other English-speaking countries, "m" (note lower case) is used for million.

From the Guardian style guide:

"million - in copy use m for sums of money, units or inanimate objects: £10m, 45m tonnes of coal, 30m doses of vaccine; but million for people or animals: 1 million people, 23 million rabbits, etc; use m in headlines"

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by walshemj on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:24PM (#18643368)
Presumably there is a considerable amount for reputational damage.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by jw1224 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @05:07PM (#18643594)
I hadn't considered it when I wrote my earlier comment, but I wouldn't be surprised to see O2 receive their own reputational damage invoices from their reseller networks (O2, Tesco, etc.) in relation to the problems.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ileri62 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @07:49PM (#18644351)
No company in the world has a lower reputation than O2. It can't get lower
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by tapland on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:13PM (#18643304)
Only 60GB mobile data plans are £30 or more.

I doubt they would be compensating payment plans for devices.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by tialaramex on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:47PM (#18643481)
O2's announced compensation is:

* Two days of an airtime contract (so e.g. if you just pay them £30 per month, that's about £2 in value for you)

* 10% discount on two types of pay-as-you-go payments with no specific limit but expect one to be announced.

The latter in particular you can expect to be heavily abused, because O2 needs the PR. I'd be astonished if that limit is any lower than £100, meaning they're giving away a £10 value.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by ttty on Sunday December 09, 2018 @09:05PM (#18644652)
I have a feeling you need to call and waste a lot of time, so most people won't bother... They won't lose near that much in real life.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by vertex-four on Sunday December 09, 2018 @10:14PM (#18644897)
No. O2 pay-monthly customers got a text message from them saying the credit will be automatically applied.
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by jw1224 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @04:59PM (#18643544)
For what it's worth, I'm on a 20GB/month mobile data plan with O2 and pay £30/month.

Puts into perspective how many customers don't change their plans when they're able to...

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by thejj100100 on Sunday December 09, 2018 @05:17PM (#18643656)
Have you tried calling them up and asking for a better deal? I’m paying £16 a month for 40gb with BT, so surely o2 could give a better deal!
Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by djhworld on Sunday December 09, 2018 @03:20PM (#18643034)
I suspect business customers might have more of a stick to beat O2 over the head with, rather than average people with a cell phone contract.

e.g. Transport for London's dot matrix displays could not show bus times for the 14 or so hours the network was down, apparently iPads issued to NHS staff to manage patient reports used O2 sim cards so that couldn't work either. Probably a whole range of small to medium enterprises affected too.

Re:O2 'to seek millions' in damages over data outage by isostatic on Sunday December 09, 2018 @05:58PM (#18643864)
Our yodel driver reported they were struggling with both signing the packages as delivered and with drivers unable to cope without google maps.