Friday, July 08, 2005
A lament for broadband
My broadband connection has gone bung this week, after a month of unreliable connections. After several phonecalls to BT and engineer’s visit, I have been told that my modem is probably to blame, so it’s being replaced under warranty, but that’s going to take a while. in the meantime, it’s back to dial-up (gulp).
The first challenge was how to sign up for an internet connection, if you don’t have an internet connection. this is the only time I have ever found myself wishing I had received a free sign-up disc in the post. I was hoping there would some kind of wizard or trial package on my machine which would at least get me online long enough to find a dial-up ISP, but I couldn’t find one. so I resorted to physical means: I got in my car and drove to the UK’s Provider of Everything (otherwise known as Tesco supermarket). they had a sign-up disc, and they also sold me a modem cable (which I discovered I didn’t have at home – that’s how long I’ve been on broadband!). when I ordered my new computer, I even contemplated not having a modem installed, even though it was a no-cost option, just for the sake of ‘tidiness’. how foolish that would have been.
so here I am, back to pay-as-you-go dial-up, costing me 3p a minute and giving me a whopping 48kbps. now I’ll be honest – for most webpages I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed of download. but speed is not really the main benefit for broadband for me, not consistently anyway. the main thing for me is not having to worry about price per minute and being able to use my phone at the same time. but when I do want the speed, I really miss it, like when someone casually sends me a 5MB mail attachment, or I want to download something from iTunes. it turns out that lots of nice things on my computer kind of depend on the internet as well, such as track names for CDs, and up-to-date help files. I’m sure I could manage fine without broadband if I had to, but after 4 years of having it, I just don’t want to be without it!
My broadband connection has gone bung this week, after a month of unreliable connections. After several phonecalls to BT and engineer’s visit, I have been told that my modem is probably to blame, so it’s being replaced under warranty, but that’s going to take a while. in the meantime, it’s back to dial-up (gulp).
The first challenge was how to sign up for an internet connection, if you don’t have an internet connection. this is the only time I have ever found myself wishing I had received a free sign-up disc in the post. I was hoping there would some kind of wizard or trial package on my machine which would at least get me online long enough to find a dial-up ISP, but I couldn’t find one. so I resorted to physical means: I got in my car and drove to the UK’s Provider of Everything (otherwise known as Tesco supermarket). they had a sign-up disc, and they also sold me a modem cable (which I discovered I didn’t have at home – that’s how long I’ve been on broadband!). when I ordered my new computer, I even contemplated not having a modem installed, even though it was a no-cost option, just for the sake of ‘tidiness’. how foolish that would have been.
so here I am, back to pay-as-you-go dial-up, costing me 3p a minute and giving me a whopping 48kbps. now I’ll be honest – for most webpages I have been pleasantly surprised by the speed of download. but speed is not really the main benefit for broadband for me, not consistently anyway. the main thing for me is not having to worry about price per minute and being able to use my phone at the same time. but when I do want the speed, I really miss it, like when someone casually sends me a 5MB mail attachment, or I want to download something from iTunes. it turns out that lots of nice things on my computer kind of depend on the internet as well, such as track names for CDs, and up-to-date help files. I’m sure I could manage fine without broadband if I had to, but after 4 years of having it, I just don’t want to be without it!
Comments:
I found myself in a similar situation a while ago, when recycling a machine to give to a friend - how to get someone online with zero effort, so they can sort them selves out with another ISP.
I stumbled upon BTClick, which offers a zero-setup, no logon service that just charges local call rates (1 - 4p/min).
See http://www.btclick.co.uk/ for more info. The dialup number is 0844 0902201.
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I stumbled upon BTClick, which offers a zero-setup, no logon service that just charges local call rates (1 - 4p/min).
See http://www.btclick.co.uk/ for more info. The dialup number is 0844 0902201.
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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