What We Do

Since the KUG was formed in October 2001, our purpose has been to work with KC and their users to help improve their Karoo Internet services, and to shape their future. During this time, significant improvements have been made to many aspects of the Karoo Internet services, ranging from their customer service and support to various technical details of the services themselves.

The improvements have largely been made possible by the users of the Karoo Internet services providing their invaluable feedback to the KUG, as this allowed the KUG to collate that feedback, along with our own, and to relay it via email, telephone and/or face-to-face meetings with the KC management responsible for the Karoo Internet services. So, please keep your feedback coming, as it can make a real difference to the future Karoo Internet services! (you can find our contact details on the Contact Us page)

Our Website

In June 2003, the KUG website was created to help us communicate better with the users of the Karoo Internet services, and to raise our profile within the Karoo community. Hence the KUG website provided an ideal home for the minutes from the face-to-face meetings with KC, and a great way to keep the users of the Karoo Internet services informed of the latest news and developments.

As time has passed, the KUG website has grown and evolved to provide various information about the Karoo Internet services, ranging from how to Contact KC to details of the Karoo Services and a number of user guides about various aspects of the Karoo Internet services available. If you have any ideas for future user guides, please feel free to Contact Us with your ideas!

The History

In August 2001, KC announced the details of what was soon be the first residential ADSL service available in Kingston Upon Hull.

Shortly after the annoucement, a lengthy discussion took place on the karoo.local newsgroup, where the differences between the ADSL services available to BT and KC customers were highlighted. It was ultimately these differences that led to the KC customers feeling disappointed with the announced ADSL service, and this resulted in a few KC customers starting petitions on the subject.

These petitions where later combined into a single petition, where the KC customers could share their ideas and thoughts about the announced ADSL service, and the other Karoo services in general. This petition and certain aspects of the ADSL service went on to attract national attention from The Register. The petition was handed in to KC on Friday, the 14th of September, 2001.

On Friday, the 5th of October, 2001, an email was received from the Operations Manager at KC. The email asked whether it would be acceptable to discuss the petition at Telephone House with both the Marketing Manager and Operations Manager. This offer was gratefully accepted, and it was decided that Chris Woodward, the author of the petition, and John Day, who provided assistance with the petition, should be the users that attend. The meeting was held on Wednesday, the 17th of October, 2001.

During the first meeting, it was decided that it would be beneficial for further meetings to be held on a quarterly basis to allow the user's of the Karoo services to provide feedback to KC. Hence, the KUG was formed on Wednesday, the 17th of October, 2001. It was decided that there should be two permanent members of the KUG (Chris Woodward and John Day), and that one additional user could attend any future meetings on a rota type basis, in order to give many different users the opportunity to attend.

On Friday, the 22nd of March, 2002, it was decided at the KUG meeting, that the KUG should be expanded to three permanent members (Chris Woodward, James Stones and John Day) and three additional users on a rota type basis. Later, on Friday, the 14th of November, 2003, it was decided at the KUG meeting, that in the future the KUG meetings should take place every two months.

The KUG was later reduced to two permanent members (Chris Woodward and James Stones) and three additional users on a rota type basis, when John Day left the KUG to set-up an alternative ISP (for the residents of Kingston Upon Hull), with the aim of providing a wireless broadband service that allows its users to be mobile, i.e. to connect without being tied to any phone line.

On Friday, the 28th of January, 2005, during a KUG meeting, KC informed the KUG that in the future KC would prefer to collect all of the Karoo users' feedback through a new 'Karoo innovators' scheme. Since then, the KUG have become part of the Karoo innovators with the hope of widening this new scheme.

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