As I rather expected, BT refused to do anything to help expedite my Internet connection, aside, of course, from trying to sell me on their broadband service instead. Consequently I’ll be heading back to Darkest Somerset on Friday and will be mostly staying there until such time as I can actually get an Internet connection in the very expensive storage locker cottage.
Of course I did have a backup plan. I have got one of those mobile broadband services. The sort of thing where you stick a dongle in your computer. I would love to be able to use that from the cottage. But of course there is no signal. There’s also no signal on it from Somerset, or from Marjorie’s house, or from a whole heap of other places I have tried it. This is odd, because it is an O2 service and I have a perfectly good Internet connection from my iPhone in all of the places were the dongle can’t get a connection. Same company, same product, totally different service. Also, when I first got it, I used to get a perfectly good signal in Somerset. I could use it as a backup when the land line went down (which, you may recall, it did every time it rained heavily, thank you BT). But for several months now the service has been pretty much inaccessible everywhere I have been.
At this point there’s only one thing to do: send for Lily Tomlin.
For the youngsters amongst you, that was from the magnificent Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In.
Ah, again we share a Boat Of Misfortune. BT’s sin against me was to, when I got in touch to ask whether there was a BT connection to my new place, tell me that there wasn’t. Turns out there is, of course… I get broadbanded next Tuesday, so nearly there.
My first choice, incidentally, was Virgin cable… but Stockport council have paved over their ductwork, and they can’t dig through it for at least a year. If bureaucracy is the price of not living in a favela, I sometimes wonder if the favela isn’t the better option in many respects…
Anyway, keep your chin up. Then end is in sight (albeit further away than you wanted it to be). Better an unpleasant definite than an unpleasant uncertainty, I always say. 🙂
Gosh, that clip of Lily Tomlin brought back memories 🙂 – I was a big fan of Laugh-In when it was first shown.
Hope your problems get sorted out soon.
Many, many years ago – before broadband – British Telecom, as it then was, proposed to fibre optically connect (ie, cable, we spoke differently then) the entire f***ing country. The Gov’t of the day turned down the proposal because the Great She Elephant’s (for it was she, THAT’s how long ago it was) favourite adviser, Lord Young, the man who brought her solutions rather than questions, and the company of which he was CEO (Cable & Wireless) would not make anything on the deal.
And so the sevice I have is worse than the service I had in Cambridge 15 years ago, but still better than that to which you are subject. Corporate monopolies, doncha just love ’em.
loved Laugh-in; Loved Lily Tomlin’s characters; sorry about the internet mess
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that my little Friend Kaeren would be deeply grateful for the information on the sheer ineffectualness of the Dongle as relayed by me after your ‘input ‘ on the same ?
Think Again for, HA!! She is blaming Me for the solution to all of Her Telecommuting IT problems not being viable!
She isn’t even prepared to consider Blaming YOU as is right and proper.
Somehow it has become MY fault. This is SO unfair .. also, this evening, SHE managed to jamb my friendly little HP 1000 printer into immobility with a printout from a vile download obtained from a site that deals with accountancy stuff … ” STOP IT DOING THAT I Didn’t intend to print the entire Thing! ” She declared and once again I am to Blame!
This is all Your Fault Cheryl!