“Telefónica Will Pay Five-Day Discount For Internet Blackout”

Affonso v. Telefônica, based on a true story. This sort of thing happened to us, too.

Zeros e uns (Exame, Editora Abril, Brazil) reports:

A reunião de representantes da Telefonica com o Ministério Público Estadual parece mesmo interminável, mas, segundo uma fonte próxima às negociações, já está definido o desconto que a operadora dará aos usuários do Speedy prejudicados pelas falhas no serviço ocorridas na semana passada. Essa fonte me contou que a Telefonica aceitou descontar o valor referente a cinco dias de serviços – ou 120 horas, bem acima das 36 horas propostas inicialmente.

The meeting between Telefônica and the state public ministry seemed to go on forever, but according to a source close to the negotiations, the discount to be offered to Speedy users harmed by the failure of service last week. This source told me that Telefônica has accepted a discount equivalent to five days of service — that is, 120 hours, a figure much higher than the 36 hours originally proposed.

How much do you want to bet Telefônica denies it has agreed to any such thing? Your intrepid Exame reporter does not even bother going through the motions of trying to get someone to corroborate this Deep Throat with information from someone who will speak on the record.

Interesting that Exame is dropping the “hat” accent on ô in Telefônica — possibly getting an early start on the proposed spelling reforms.

On Telefônica as a poster-child for net neutrality, see also

• “Risk of More Internet Blackouts in Brazil”: Universalization Guru
• “Telefônica Backbone Breakage Leaves São Paulo Quadriplegic For Nearly 24 Hours”
• “Telefônica Crashes 911 And Can’t Get It Running Again”
• ‘Telefônica Fubar Proves Net Should Be Run As a Public Utility’

Initial statements from Telefônica appeared to deny that home users were affected at all. Someone should really go back and look at the whole incident as a case study in how to fail to wake up during a doozy of a public relations nightmare.

Além disso, a Telefonica deverá criar um call center para quem teve danos indiretos com as falhas. Será o caso de atender, por exemplo, uma pessoa que faltou ao trabalho para ir ao Poupatempo e deu de cara com os serviços parados por causa das falhas na estrutura da operadora.

Further, Telefônica will create a call center for those harmed indirectly by the blackout. SUch would be the case, for example, with a person who missed work because they went to the Poupatempo and found service there paralyzed because of the failure of Telefônica infrastructure.

The Poupatempo (”time-saver”) is sort of a DMV+ for all sorts of bureaucracy — ID, drivers licensing, property taxes, yada yada. As part of a bureaucracy reduction plan, it actually seems to be making some headway. We have been down there and actually received prompt, courteous, competent service! Brazilian bureaucracy can be more than Kafkaesque, but doesn’t always have to be.

Já na semana que vem, a Telefônica deverá discutir o aporte que fará ao Fundo de Direitos Difusos. Explicando melhor: para a operadora não ser multada pelo Procon-SP pelas falhas no serviço – punição que poderia chegar a 3 milhões de reais -, optou por fazer uma “contribuição” a esse fundo. A idéia é passar a mensagem de que, em vez de ser condenada a pagar a multa do Procon-SP, a operadora foi “voluntária” em fazer essa doação.

Next week, Telefônica is scheduled to start talks about the contribution it will make to a general indemnification fund. That is to say, in order to avoid being fined by the consumer rights agency, Procon-SP, it opted to make a “contribution” to this fund. The idea is to send a message that, rather than being found guilty of something and fined, Telefônica “volunteered” this donation.

Circula nos bastidores o rumor de que a operadora vai pagar entre 5 e 6 milhões de reais – um pouco mais do que previa a multa do Procon, mas seria uma espécie de preço a pagar para aparecer bem na foto, se é que isso é possível…. (especialmente depois de derrubar praticamente o Estado todo por causa de um problema no roteador de Sorocaba).

A rumor is circulating behind the scenes that Telefônica will pay between R$5 million and R$6 million — a little more than the expected Procon fine, but this is seen as a sort of premium for improving its public image, if that is possible … (especially after it brought practically the whole state crashing down because of a problem in a router in Sorocaba.)

Exame feels your pain and shares your indignation.

Sourcing in this story: 1 (one) Deep Throat and an indeterminate number (∞ – (x>0)) of “rumors circulating behind the scenes.”

Probable infodensity index: Low. Tag for follow-up. If the final deal does not provide discounts worth 120 hours of service, this would count towards Exame’s “failed prognostication rate” (FPR) score, which is an important input of our content-purchasing decision algorithm. (We currently pay no money for any Editora Abril products.)