dial up

i got my broadband 8mb from pipex &6.50 per month

 

gald to see its working macleaf.....what braodband are you?


Windymiller...try what macleaf done...but it does depend on what broadband isp you have.

 

My BB is 1.6Mbps but it's free!!

 

24th January has been and gone as they say and I'm still waiting to get Broadband!!!

Computer man has visited today and tried but did not succeed as pc is too far away
from incoming BT plug.
The solution is therefore to 'go wireless' and have a thingy (excuse un-technical term)
like a modem downstairs where the BT socket is, and a small aeriel plugged into my pc.
No extra wiring.
Just need to find �£100 and persuade o/h that just everybody is on Broadband. :D

 

Can't understand why you can't just get an extra-long lead running from the Broadband modem which will plug into the wall socket to your PC. If you've been on dial-up you must have had a long lead.
If you can avoid and don't need a wireless connection you are better off without one. A wireless link runs a bit slower than a wired one and is also less secure.
Having said that wireless can be really handy if you want to use a PC anywhere in the house. We've two fixed PCs (son's and mine) hardwired into our router and a laptop on wireless that we can use in any room or the garden.

BTW for anyone on Broadband wanting to test their actual speed here's a link. We are supposed to be on 8 meg but don't get anywhere near it.
http://www.speedtest.net/

 

That was revealing, Dave. Speeds ar enot always what they purport to be!

I have had a real bummer of a day. I'm on TalkTalk-Onetel and this afternoon my telephone went down. So I reported the fault by using my mobile which hasn't got a terrific signal in my house. Four times I had to redial after beginning to get somewhere with the persons who eventually took my call.

I finally got someone who seemed able to deal with this but he started asking me to unplug the Sky box (which is behind a cabinet) and all sorts! Then we agreed I could just unplug the lot from the main port in the hall but then he wanted a corded telephone plugged in for a test (??) so had to go upstairs to get one. When I got back to the mobile, he said would I go back and check if there was a dial-tone. (Doh!) I'd already done that! So he then asked me some real no-brainer questions like did I often have trouble with my telephones!

Now by this point I had been with this **@!!* mobile pressed to my skull for two hours so was understandably a little touchy! Like "of course I've had problems with them - that's why I've just spent 2 hrs on the phone..." He told me I was being unco-operative! I told him that under the circumstances I was displaying a considerable degree of self-control!

Well, having (he thought) pacified his tetchy client, he suggested that, when the engineers were connecting new customers at the exchange this afternoon they must have accidentally disconnected mine!

He then took an age to fill in a form on his computer and told me he would send it on to the engineers BUT it wouldn't be forwarded to them for 24hrs! When I asked why he just said it was company policy not to forward fault reports for 24hrs! Further, he said, the fault would not then be dealt with for 3-5 working days!!!

Had I not been a lady and a Christian one at that, you might guess what I had been tempted to say!!

 

Dave thanks for reply. I have got a long lead from the wall socket to the modem
and that, I am told, is what the problem is.

However, grand-daughter has recently found herself a new boyfriend who installs
Broadband for NTL customers (quite handy boyfriend to have)and they are going to
try and get over to see me this Saturday and sort the problem.
He says from what he has heard there should be no reason why BB can't be installed.

I have heard that before :rolleyes: but hope this time it will work!

Are there any other people who have had all this hassle? :eek:

 

What annoys me about broadband is that as consumers we are not given all the facts. It does appear that you get what you pay for....pay less and you get a rubbish service quite often.
I had a long spate of trouble with Tiscali. I had been a long time customer before broadband and as soon as it was available in this area paid for the top whack unlimited, which was fine until Tiscali started a big campaign to get new customers, when i received several E-mails saying I was using it too much ( I had two teenage sons and a wireless system) So began the saga of Tiscali threatening to put me on a server that would be rubbish and me asking them what did unlimited mean etc etc. Anyway after talking to Offcom or whatever I found out that there were cheapo companies like Tiscali who rent the bandwiths or whatever it is and then bung as many customers as possible on, so slowing down speeds, and other companies who own their own bandwith and put limits on the numbers they connect to each hub.
After talking to people who knew more about computers than me I settled on Demon. I get lightening fast speeds at times (Tiscali's was usually slower than dial up) and I don't get nasty E-mails. Also I don't get interruptions in the service that I used to get. Tiscali were awkward about removing their tag or whatever off my line and they got a rap on the knuckles from the watchdog for that.
Wireless should not compromise your security. I have heard that happening but you need to make sure it can be encrypted. I know that when i powered up a new laptop it recogtnised 3 wirelss networks available. To connect to mine, which I could see listed I had to type a 26 long letter code into the settings ( I got that off the back of the router). It was dead simple. I can use my laptop half way down the garden or anywhere in the house - it was brill when I was ill in bed, and my son and his girlfriend can both use their Wi Fi laptops when they are here. Wireless is absolutely fantastic, we could not be without it now. We don't notice any loss of speed.

 

That sounds promising re wireless Geoff. I don't mind paying �£100 for equipment as long as it is guaranteed it will work but I have just spent �£30 on the modem - which might not be suitable now. I will wait and see what happens Saturday if/when grand-daughter and boyfriend manage to visit.
Like you say customers are not given all the facts when they think of signing up - only how easy and fantastic everything is!

 

Well I got the wirelss router from Tiscali. Over the phone they said how easy it was to set up. It came with an instruction manual that was useless. I ended up getting the bloke who sorts out the computers to do it. His technique was to go online and he said there were lots of complaints about it. Once it was working it was OK, it was just the instructions were useless. I was able to change the settings myself when I changed from Tiscali to Demon and have been able to add the receivers to different computers myself.
One thing i have noticed is that the Demon tech support knew about the router and knew their way round it - I had to speak to them a couple of times. Better than Tiscali's tech support, that is if you could get through.

 

I was with tiscali broadband and they had me on a cut off switch they said an hour i begged to differ with them, appalling service so i went back to bt broadband and at last i am recieving the service i asked for broadband anytime.

 

I think BT is proabably not too bad. Its ratings are quite good. I kept away from them. I was a long term customer of theirs and I must have been one of the first to sign up for their first always on package before broadband. Then I found the speed went incredibly slow. On a search of the web i found a lot of other dissatisfied customers and an employee blew the whistle - that BT were deliberately putting high users on to servers that were deliberately slow and kept cutting us off etc. They were trying to get rid of the heavy users. I remember it all got featured on the Watchdog TV programme.
It is funny how some of these service providers can be so cavalier about customer service. It is difficult to build up good trustworthy customer service reputation but you can lose that overnight if you cheat or lie to customers - and then they remember it a long time.
I know there a lot of people now who will never have any more dealings with the likes of BT, Tiscali, British Gas etc and therefore their friends, relatives, social contacts etc are unlikely to deal with those customers either. Advertising costs a lot of money, bad publicity comes free. When are they going to get their thick heads around that idea?

 

I am still waiting :(

 

I've been very happy with my free TalkTalk BB. True, I've had some run-ins with the customer service, mostly to do with the switchover from Onetel's DUC to TT BB (better say that before jjordie ruptures a gasket!!). They never told me that I had to phone Onetel and tell them I was switching over so my DUC could be disconnected and the billing discontinued. Silly me totally believed their "we're one company now" rubbish and assumed that my buying a BB package would automatically result in the cessation of the DUC. As a result I've ended up paying an extra 4 months at �£13.99 pm!!

Then, having got it disconnected, I found I couldn't get at my emails as I had retained my old email addy!! I was anxious to get at them as I was expecting a business mail. After a lot of being bounced around like a tennis ball, one guy finally told me my email addy would always exist and I could access it through Onetel's website!! Was I livid!

So, apart from being careul that you're not sucked into the "We're all one big, happy family now!" (Cause they're not!!!) I am even happier with TT and especially my new email addy which is "waversaver**"! Love it!

**(I use flags in church every Sunday, y'see!!)

 

11th February and on Broadband at last!!!

Grand-daughter and boyfriend arrived and sorted it out for me. He removed the microfilters - "don't need them" he said and hey presto it works! It was nothing to do with the long lead from the wall socket and I did not need to pay �£100 for the wireless router and aeriel I was told was the only way I would get onto Broadband.

Well, it's only taken since 19th November .....

Of course I had to change my email address and that meant updating my profile on GC and then had a bit of a problem logging in - thanks Webmaster and MD for putting that right for me.