my latest (unusual) broadband experience

vibe666

so, my mum calls me from the UK asking about Sky Broadband and if she should get it so she can buy a laptop in 2 weeks when I visit and get online so she can email me etc.

she asks me to call for her as she doesn't want them to make her feel old and stupid cos she know's nothing about computers or t'internet.

they have an 'all three' package of phone, internet and sky tv for £16.99 a month which she asks me to arrange for her.

i call up (this was this saturday afternoon just gone) and speak to a nice lad in scotland and we go thru the details. and install engineer is supposed to come round tomorrow to install the sky box and dish, but they told me due to 'line upgrades' in the area there could be a delay in getting the broadband in. anything up to 3 weeks. ah well.

she calls me today to tell me someone knocked on her door yesterday (monday) morning to tell her he was cutting the phone off because she wanted internet (her words) and to siwtch her over to the new phone company. 20 minutes later he knocks again to tell her that the phone is back on again with Sky instead of BT and that her 'D' line (again, her words) is activated and as soon as she gets her modem she can just plug it in and should work fine.

so it took from about 4pm saturday morning to 11am monday morning to switch phone providers and get DSL activated on a line that's never had broadband on it before. they had it set up quicker than the post office could post her modem to her.

here in Ireland it took me 75 days to get an existing phoneline re-activated and another month to get my broadband back on (in a house that had previously had it).

I know I know, I can here it already "why don't you just fvk off back to england then you limey barsteward!".

serves me right for falling in love with an irish girl i guess.

Sponge Bob

1st World Telecoms vs 3rd World Telecoms would spring to mind if ya weren't a durty Brit

dub45

While the speed of the change is indeed remarkable I would have concerns at sky accepting an order from someone who wasn't the bill payer and in particular from someone phoning from another country.

All isn't sweetness and light in the U.K. (or hasn't been) Haven't they had terrible problems with some companies refusing to release the lines when customers wished to transfer their bb to another company?

http://www.maccode.org.uk/switch-broadband/guide-to-switching-broadband-in-uk/

vibe666

i think bt are probably going to be more reliable to leave than a lot of isp's. well, in this case at least.

oh, and they called her up afterwards to confirm the order after i gave them all her details. i forgot to mention that bit.

oh, also forgot to mention I got her upgraded to sky+ for £49 as well which seemed like a pretty good deal too.

pickarooney

"Son, would you mind ringing these cowboys and getting me the seventeen-pound deal? I don't want them confusing me and end up getting ripped off."

"Hi Mum, I sorted it out, and for only thirty-two more of the Queen's pounds per month I got you free footy so I'll have something to do when I'm bored out of my mind when I come to visit. What do you think, Mum? Mum?"

vibe666

almost.

don't worry I'll be busy enough trying to keep her off ebay. she's already addicted to those auction tv channels on sky from her sisters house.