The importance of good PR on the net

Another Register story has caught my eye, the reporting of some serious e-mail problems over at PlusNet. I can't but help think that a better PR statement could have been provided than the one that has - good PR really comes across well online.

"Bounced email Problem: Problem with email configuration occurred on Friday at 11:15, problem fixed by 15:30 for 90% of customers and remaining done by 16.30. This followed a restore from back-up. Customers were informed of the problem and the subsequent resolution via our website service status tool http://usertools.plus.net/status/archive/1168015185.htm PlusNet would like to apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused.

Central pipe segments: In July we disabled two 155Mbps BT Central segments after migrating around 20,000 customers to Tiscali's wholesale LLU network which corresponds to a similar amount of bandwidth."

Is this a case of an ISP that has traditionally had a tecchie audience having some growing pains as they become more mass market friendly? I wonder how their new owners (BT) will respond.