BT in 2009

How to keep this shortish rather than a long rant you won't read? Not with well formed sentences, that's for sure. It won't be THAT short though.

Cable under new street crap, no cable broadband. Forced to go for ADSL. Probably other providers quite good but liked BT's offer of unlimited use of Openzones. Only realised much, much later that this requires BT FON opt in - trading use of my connection to the public (albeit not exposing my own network to them). That aside, overall it's slower, but it would be. It lags more at peak, but it would do - everyone around here has to use it. Really it's exactly what I expected. An almost identical price for a far slower network connection. So be it. That one's Virgin's fault. Their service, minus customer service, has been excellent lately, and I would happily have stuck with it.

The ADSL itself seems fine and not too shabby, speed wise. Already had wireless problems with my new home hub. Switching to channel 4 seems to have curbed it. Also some warning about them fucking with things for the first ten days to get me the best speed, but I somehow doubt much of that is happening Saturday afternoon.

BT FON is an interesting idea. I will see what mileage I can get out of using other people's routers, particularly at the beach in the summer where the open points really dried up last year. Funny thing is I've always felt guilty and sheepish when seen fishing for open access points in public. If I do it this way it's legitimate but to a passer by it looks the same. I also wonder where this technology fits into the whole illegal internet activity argument, given that potentially illegal activity beyond my control could be flowing directly through my phone line. The law has a history of misunderstanding networking technology. How can we be sure they'll understand this well enough to find FON participants innocent. No doubt there is writing on this subject, and no doubt i'll get on to it sooner or later. In the mean time, if you're on my street and a... Fonero... enjoy!

BT as a company, or should I say a group of lots of companies is painful to deal with. I could bore you with the usual cliches about customer service, but the hot topics here are too many departments and companies involved, lack of ownership, unnecessary mistakes and assumptions. So bad was my experience that I got used to asking which department I was now speaking to, and a series of bad business led to a guy that made it clear his home contained no BT box to have his engineer appointment quietly cancelled whilst a piece of wire covered in redecorative plaster was activated at his £120 expense. Once faults got hold of it, everything improved dramatically, so at least the future's bright. The specific company to blame here is BT Openreach, and as usual it's the admin side, not the guys that do the work.

Lots more going on around this move. I have an issue with every utility provider except Sky who as i've already mentioned not only gave me an excellent Sky+ box and house move deal, but showed up to find no BT box, a prerequisite, but went ahead anyway, got it done quickly and cleanly and were finished. Say what you want about News Corp - they get shit done, and this fact should not be ignored by businesses that fail to do so.

QUICK: The Sky is Falling. Pun at 11!

For anyone searching the universe to find out how much you can get companies to bend on certain things - Today I called Sky. Having previously been told moving my service to my new place (oh yeah - i'm moving) will be £60 I had decided to do without for a while and told them it was "the cost". They were happy to half it to £30 immediately. I then asked if the new dish would be in support of Sky+ as I believed my old Dish had needed to be upgraded had I wanted it. Yes was the answer, but, I said, I know as an existing customer I won't get a Sky+ box for less than £200, with even new customers being asked to pay £99. The response was very surprising: $45 for the new dish install and a Sky+ box. Wasn't gonna refuse that! Murdoch has me for the foreseeable future and I have an old Sky box to sell on eBay!

Thing about Sky is, whenever people make the frugality case for not having it, they always insist on assuming everybody is a Sky Movies and Sky Sports subscriber that pays £50 a month. The pack I have with Sky is £17.50. One number is far easier to swallow than the other!

QUICK: English Food

I keep hearing Americans slating English food. I felt I should defend it, because frankly I don't find anything I eat bland. It's around that time I realised that I don't eat anything that falls into the category of English food.

Chilli is Mexican
Madras is Indian (yeah, sort of, I know)
Fried Chicken is American
Pasta is Italian
Pizza is Italian

I should probably diversify since this is pretty much the food I rotate through. What English food should I be eating though? I eat Fish and Chips I guess.