Comments on: A positive telecoms story

By: focalplane

focalplane — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 10:57:29 +0000

No cable out here in the sticks, and the ADSL is just about at the end of the telephone line. We selected Virgin and at the beginning they were dreadful – wrong modem, expensive tech line, etc. But the system does work well now even if the bandwidth is low (I think the fastest download is only 60kb/sec while upload is 30kb/sec. That’s the price for living in the middle of nowhere!

BTW, I did look into satellite but it’s very expensive, simply not an option.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 12:44:29 +0000

Can’t agree more about the cable, we’re getting TV, Phone and Broadband for £20 a month. Catch up is worth that alone. No problem with speed really, it’s gets a bit slower at night, but it’s fair enough the amount I pound it. Not had to deal with Customer Service yet, but to be fair, I’ve never had good dealing with customer services …

I’ve heard Be are good for ADSL, apparently they actually disconnect you for the BT network and onto their own super fast stuff.

By: Hermes

Hermes — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 07:37:48 +0000

Sounds like you’re a candidate for WiMAX then brenda :-)

By: brenda

brenda — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:42:04 +0000

I absolutely loved my Telewest cable when I lived in Moseley. It’s as you say, completely rock solid. I never had an outage at night either, although yes, the moden froze, but only twice in about 3 years.

The big trenches they dug all around the area were horrendously disruptive and noisy, big concrete-smashing hammers and tarmac cutters, and then bloody digger things. The compressor noise alone was really dire. But it was definitely worth it.

Bloody BT is all I can get where I live now, and on a really shaky infrastructure, although the key is to get with a provider who actually takes responsibility for that within the contract. Pipex and then Demon don’t/didn’t, and were severely naff, always blaming BT, who then always blamed the IP. Zen does take responsibility for the whole shebang, and it is far, far better, again approaching the stability of cable. But I only get 512 MBps! I think you get 10, don’t you?

I really bloody object to having to pay for a landline telephone I never, ever use though. That’s the pits.

By: beez

beez — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:35:18 +0000

I’ve been with the cable monopoly for years too without much problems. I occasionally need to reset the modem (like once every 4 months or something) but for the most part its solid. I get enough speed most of the time for most things and like you say it really is unlimited. I can’t see myself switching to a copper provider however cheap they sell it. Proper cable is just that bit more solid.

I figure in urban areas like this we’ll be doing it all wirelessly next and that’ll be the point where we abandon thick cables.

By: moseleyblogger

moseleyblogger — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:32:42 +0000

I mostly agree – but given Virgin’s record of mucking about and then crapifying a service, and the incremental evidence of same with the cable franchise, the day will come when you will be weighing up your options with BT. Unless some start-up manages to deliver a better service using some other technology.

By: Dave Shelton

Dave Shelton — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:58:42 +0000

It probably won’t go horribly wrong now.

But oh, if it does, Customer Services are equal parts Dante and Kafka (with added “on hold” music). Beware.