So, here I am back at Marjorie’s place for a couple of hours to check email and try to sort out my Internet access problem. The good news is that despite the BT sales person assuring me that nothing could be done in less that 2 weeks, I now have email promising me a phone line by May 4th. That however, is only half the problem, because I need broadband access too.

Of course I could get broadband from BT, which would possibly be quicker, but it would be crap service. I get my broadband from Zen, because they do a great job, including having a “customer service” department that actually tries to help the customer rather than simply parroting excuses from a script. Case in point.

When I knew I would be moving, I asked Zen what I should do. They explained what I needed to tell BT in order to get both phone line and broadband set up simultaneously. I called BT and got some kid in call centre who insisted that there was no way that they would consider setting up broadband until the phone line was active. So I called Zen again and the guy there is sending me an email with the exact words I need to quote to the BT people in order to get them to do what I want. He also said they do about 40 of these simultaneous transfers a week, which kind of makes a nonsense of the BT guy saying it was impossible.

Of course I may well get stonewalled again by BT. That’s what big corporations teach their call centre staff to do. But with any luck I’ll actually have Internet access in just over a week, which is much better than the 3 weeks I was looking at yesterday. And it will be a good broadband service from a company that actually cares about its customers, which is a real rarity in Britain these days.