back to article Kingston hides Hull roots with KCom rebrand

Hull-based telco and IT firm Kingston Communications Group has decided it doesn't want to be so closely associated with East Yorkshire, and whipped out the joss-sticks to reimagine itself as KCom Group. The rebrand has presumably taken four years to be brainstormed, tendered, commissioned, created, put out to focus groups, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    King Com

    When I used to work in the Hull area we referred to them as King Com.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Immortal words

    In the immortal words of Derek Trotter, well-known salesperson of Rajah computers, "I've been to Hull and back".

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Eh?

    So is Kingston in Hull? Never new that, nor would 99.99999% of the world population.

    Still if it makes them happy....

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kangaroo

    I wonder whether they will bother rebranding their crappy Kangaroo ISP division. Mind you, there's no point - if you have the misfortune of living in Hull, you don't have a choice of ISP.

    By the way, Hull is NOT Britain's crappiest town - it's a city.

  5. Duncan Hothersall

    Re: Eh?

    Kingston *is* Hull. Kingston upon Hull is the proper name of the jewel of Humberside.

  6. David Wykes

    RE: Eh?

    Kingston Upon Hull is the full name and it just gets abbreviated to Hull

  7. Bedders

    Codhead? CODHEAD?

    Codheads are from Grimsby and we'll thank you not to confuse us with the Yorkies on the north bank of the Humber.

  8. Neil Hoskins

    Spam, spam, spam

    Is it still a spam sewer?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Stu Reeves

    There's no need to tar the rest of the world's population with YOUR ignorance.

    It's the city of Kingston Upon Hull, as any fule kno.

  10. David Evans

    Oi!

    Less of the Codhead jibes; everyone knows the North Sea's empty now. Hull is a fine town, but then I've lived in Peterborough and Salford, so I know what a real sh*thole looks like.

  11. luke

    Title

    or more frequent 'ull

    (working in the city means I am allowed to mock at will)

  12. Chris Williams (Written by Reg staff)

    @Bedders

    there seems to be some debate on the issue:

    http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=codhead

    1. codhead

    Dirty grimsby fans

    2. codhead

    A native of Kingston-upon-Hull

    We hate the codheads,

    The smelly codheads,

    They're only happy on Giro day,

    Their Mam's out dealing,

    Their Dad's out stealing,

    Please don't take my hubcaps away.

    Chris Williams

    El Reg

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hull: the city that had no choice

    Legend has it that Hull received a special dispensation from the erstwhile Offcom to maintain Kingston Communications monopoly on the supply of cream telephone boxes and a lacklustre broadband service.

    The city persuaded Offcom by organising coachloads of council officers/shareholders/telecom werkers to barrack the tremulous regulator. It caved in and kept John Prescotts backyard free from the forces of capitalism.

    No amount of badge engineering will disguise the fact that you get what you are given in this most rotten of boroughs.

    If the locals had a hand in rebranding Kingston Communications there would be some colourful suggestions. My contribution would be DaftPillocks.com to give a flavour of the service standards you are likely to get for your money.

  14. James Wade

    Hull is the only city in the UK with its own independent telephone network company...

    That's right, it's Kingston Communications, while we all suffer with BT, they get their own ISP...

    That is what Hull is probably most famous for...

    Also to note: "Kingston upon Hull" is more usually referred to simply as Hull.

    I like KCOM as they own Eclipse, which is a fantastic ISP.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    bah hahahahah

    Instead of thinking of a new name for the company to disassociate it’s self from Hull, They’d do better to chop of the 80% of dead wood that they have employed there.

    Who care’s anyway. As soon as that OFCOM rule kicks in and they are forced to open up to the likes of BT, They’ll be a thing of the past (I hope)

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Chris Williams re: codheads

    I see. If it's on the internet, it must be true?

    Perhaps you should also look at the voting system on Urban Dictionary. Approximately half the votes are actually thumbs down votes, meaning that the voters disagree with the definition.

    I spent twenty years growing up in Hull and I have never heard of the perjorative "codhead" in relation to a Hullensian.

    Incidentally, I used to live next door to Bill Brettell, the only trawler skipper to win the Silver Cod four times, so I think perhaps I'd have heard of the term "codhead" if it applied to Hullensians, don't you?

  17. Brogue

    rebrand and?

    I've had great service from Kingston on two areas of their business. If only BT were more like them.

    Also it seems Kingston want to branch out with their brand, makes sense to me, and just looking at their website, they have customers all over the UK and beyond. I'm sure they have their roots in Hull like Vodafone did in Newbury but clearly moving with the times.

    BT service is so s**t, that should have been your article C.W. Did you get done for speeding in Hull or something?

  18. Carol Yates

    Re: Eclipse

    James, when you say "I like KCOM as they own Eclipse, which is a fantastic ISP."...You jest surely?

    Before they were bought by Kingston Comms they *were* a good ISP, but now they are p*** poor.

    KCom sounds more like a brand of bog roll. ;o))

  19. James Wade

    Re: Re: Eclipse

    I deal with lots of ISPs, it's almost always a pleasure to deal with Eclipse, before or after the KCOM buy out.

    I do have a number of issues with their protocols for cancelling, (ie: you can't do it over the phone), but that's another story.

  20. Outcast

    Passing Thru

    Dave Evans spaketh ..

    <quote> but then I've lived in Peterborough and Salford, so I know what a real sh*thole looks like. </quote>

    Aaaah.. I guess that means you were ... "just passing through" then .. (Think about it)

    You didn't have a "run in" with the Friels perchance did you ?

    Paul

    Peterborough

    Oh... I know html aint allowed, but my <quote> helps define the quoted text </quote>

  21. Spider

    paint job

    doesn't matter if you gold plate it...

    a turd is still a turd.

  22. Peter Maddison

    KC to BT

    bah hahahahah

    Posted Friday 17th August 2007 17:10 GMT

    Instead of thinking of a new name for the company to disassociate it’s self from Hull, They’d do better to chop of the 80% of dead wood that they have employed there.

    Who care’s anyway. As soon as that OFCOM rule kicks in and they are forced to open up to the likes of BT, They’ll be a thing of the past (I hope)

    Well, I phoned BT last week and asked them if I could have a BT line and they said YES!!!!.... (I live in Hull)

    It would take up to 3 working days for an engineer to do the tests and all to call me back. It's going to cost me £124.99 on my first bill but thats a small price to pay for freedom I think.

    If this IS true it will be the start of a huge revolution (and the biggest party ever in Hull) I'll post back the result later.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Monopoly anyone......?

    I look forward to the day Hull residents and businesses have a choice in their ISP. Currently KC has no competition and therefore has no incentive to offer a competitive service. They may have been one of the early adopters of ADSL but after that point any major technological advancement’s have sailed past Hull (no pun intended). There is currently no SDSL service, there are no ADSL2+ services and there is no city wide Wi-Fi network. I believe KC's monopoly is stifling Hull progress by driving up the costs for businesses to operate within the area. ‘KC get outa ‘ull we don’t wantcha any mure’.

  24. pctechxp

    Covert Ops in Hull?

    This is probably a myth but I did once hear that the reason for Hull having a separate phone company is because one of the security agencies had some sort of base there?

    Seems a bit strange that its the only place in the UK where you cant choose your fixed line telecoms provider (I'm assuming their monopoly doesn't extend to mobile provision)

    Black Helicopters over Hull methinks.

  25. pctechxp

    @David Evans

    the UK's number one sh*thole is without doubt Milton Keynes and I should know as I have the misfortune of living here.

    I've never been to Hull so I cant comment but its got to be better than here apart from the telecom monopoly.

    Best ISP? definitely NewNet (I used to ue Eclipse and can agree that the service went downhill after KCom or whoever bought it, bit like ISPs bought by BT)

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