BT Broadband

TheFredJ

i thought it might be worth posting this story.

my big sis finally went and got broadband, having been using dial-up for the last year. she opted for some bt package. she phoned em and signed up and got a phone call back saying her line had been turned on and giving her a user name and password.

not knowing what to do next, she calls me. i ask her has she plugged the modem in. what modem, she asks. bt neglected to mention the modem to her.

a couple of weeks later, she calls me again. the modem's arrived and it's all plugged in, but she still doesn't know what to do. i try some basic telephone support, fail, and finally agree to call out to her.

get out, try everything, not getting anywhere. finally locate the problem. she was using internet explorer, which was set to always dial a connection and this was stopping her getting through to the broadband modem in order to log on to it. now no matter how many times i pressed the little radio button saying never dial a connection, it just wouldn't change. always stufck on always dial a connection. eventually, i just removed the connection and, hey presto, we were into the broadband control window, where she could log on.

now the question she wanted to know was this: why was setting up her broadband such a pain in the arse? why didn't bt issue clearer instructions, all the way through the process, from the modem issue to the internet eplorer problem? surely her problem can't have been all that unique, so why wasn't the suggestion that she remove her dial-up connection included in the instructions bt issued? bt, surely, could have held her hand a bit better throughout the whole process and not leave her to rely on techie friends and family?

non-techie types new to broadband do really seem to have a whole heap of hassles put in front of them. is it any wonder broadband take-up is so low?

dogpile

Did you get instructions with the router?

This would tell you to check you are set up to automatically obtain a network IP, going into Network connections and doing a bit of jiggery pokery(technical term)

and ditch IE btw..Opera or Firefox is the way to go!:cool:

CuLT

To be brutally honest, I don't think people without even basic computer knowledge should be ordering self-install broadband kits.

Most companies provide an "engineer install" service for that reason.

Also, I'm pretty sure a company telling you to remove a competitors product from your computer would get them into trouble.

de5p0i1er

I got a self-install from them and I had a few problems with my modem, a guy fixed it over the phone and it worked fine I still have a dail up installed and had no problems with IE reading the broadband modem it was all in the instructions that came in the box.

dub45

CuLT wrote:

To be brutally honest, I don't think people without even basic computer knowledge should be ordering self-install broadband kits.

Most companies provide an "engineer install" service for that reason.

Also, I'm pretty sure a company telling you to remove a competitors product from your computer would get them into trouble.

I am surprised that this has not been raised before - over the past couple of months I have set up bb for five people who genuinely did not have the faintest notion even where to start. And the instructions meant absolutely nothing to them.

And as for this sort of advice:rolleyes:

Did you get instructions with the router?

This would tell you to check you are set up to automatically obtain a network IP, going into Network connections and doing a bit of jiggery pokery(technical term)

and ditch IE btw..Opera or Firefox is the way to go!

That is absolutely meaningless to most people. It is easy for boards contributors to forget just how little the average person getting bb actually knows about computers never mind routers proxies firewalls etc etc.

A lot of people will also avoid the engineer install because of the additional costs involved.

And in fairness to BT this not just an issue for them.

CuLT

dub45 wrote:

A lot of people will also avoid the engineer install because of the additional costs involved.

True enough, it's certainly not cheap, but a friend of mine phrased it such: if you buy an oven, you pay someone to fit it (unless you can fit an oven). You don't go back to the store and demand that a shop clerk install it.

And you're right, a lot of people on boards just don't realize how technically "inept" (for want of a less belittling word) people can be when it comes to computers. Absolute mental block for some. Turning it on and opening a folder for their files can already a complicated enough concept.

Ziycon

As said before the self install kit is for people that know sort'a what there doing, ther engineer install would be for people that dont know what they are doing also there can be many things that stop your system from working with the bb if you use the self install kit! Also the reason that all compaines dont have instructions very detailed is that they can not antisipate how everyone of there customers PCs are configured!

TheFredJ

i didn't know there was self install / engineer install packages - will have to ask my sis why she chose self install (or if she chose it and that wasn't just the default offering). the funny thing is, when the guy i work with (another techie) got his ntl broadband set up, it was done by an engineer. so the guy who least needs an engineer gets one, and the person who most needs one doesn't. go figure.

my point in posting was merely to point out the hurdles non-techies have to go through to get something like broadband working for them. the stuff most of us here take for granted is like balck magic to them.

with regard to all the advice as to how i should have set it up and about ditching ie - my sis is not techie. she uses the puter as it came out of the box. actually, she's a good casestudy on things like that. she wouldn't even dream of installing news software herself. so she runs with ie. she runs with ms mail. she runs with the limited version of ms works that came with the puter. she doesn't want to use firefox cause she uses ie in work. she doesn't want to use opera mail cause she uses ms in work. she doesn't want to use openoffice, cause she uses ms word in work. all the things the techie minded people on this board would know what to do with - she hasn't a clue. and she doesn't want to have to learn one way of using the puter at home and a different way of doing it in the office. and the point here is this - she's not all that unsusual in this regard.

Cabaal

CuLT wrote:

True enough, it's certainly not cheap, but a friend of mine phrased it such: if you buy an oven, you pay someone to fit it (unless you can fit an oven). You don't go back to the store and demand that a shop clerk install it.

And you're right, a lot of people on boards just don't realize how technically "inept" (for want of a less belittling word) people can be when it comes to computers. Absolute mental block for some. Turning it on and opening a folder for their files can already a complicated enough concept.

I couldn't agree more, some people are just not techy one bit and they don't want to become techy either, they just want windows to start and word to work and the internet to work.

They don't give a crap about what program is made by who or which is the best as long as it does what they want it to, alot of people should really fork out the extra amount for the eng install unless they they know somebody that is actually techy and just doesn't think they know what their doing

JNive

cable installs are never self-install since instalation requires communication and verification with the cable company and the cable modems dont log-in via a simple username:password system. plus there is the extra cabling often required and since homes tend not to have at least one available cable connection inside the house thats another cause for specific equipment to install