I'm Back!
I can hardly believe it, what with only being connected to the phone line a week ago, but for the last couple of days I have been luxuriating in the experience of having broadband too.
It's all a bit strange, much like everything else to do with communications in this neck of the woods. When Dave the friendly BT engineer connected us, he mentioned that there was already a 'jumper' on the line, so we should be able to connect to our broadband ISP straight away. This confused me, since we didn't actually have a broadband ISP. Sure, I applied for a cheap deal that was going on back in January, but as the weeks drew out into months waiting for the phone line to be connected, I emailed that company and told them to forget about it. There were bound to be better deals available when I finally got my phone line, after all. I never received the connection pack - modem, installation CD and whatnot - so I assumed they had forgotten about it as instructed.
But there was the small matter of that jumper on the line. It got me thinking, and at the weekend I delved through the mess of emails that had accumulated in my inbox over the months. Up until today, I've only been able to download emails by taking my laptop to a wifi hotspot, and usually there hasn't been time to deal with them there. I always reasoned that I'd sort through them once I got home, deleting those unwanted, filing those needing kept, drafting replies where necessary that could then be sent next time I was near a wifi hotspot.
This, of course, is not how it happened. Instead I would download up to a hundred emails, scan through them for anything interesting, read it, and leave the rest to deal with later.
Later was last weekend, as it happened, and in amongst about seven hundred offers for enlarged manhood and dodgy qualifications was an email from my intended ISP dated early March. It contained a customer account code, username and password, amongst other things. So I set up my wireless router, plugged in the relevant details, hit the 'connect' button and voila! Internet a go go.
Today I finally got around to phoning up the ISP and asking them what was going on. According to one person my account has been active since March, although in all that time they have never tried to take any money from me despite having my credit card details on file. According to another person, my account is inactive and there is no way it should be working. Quite frankly I don't care. I'm typing this now, and when I've finished I'll be able to update today's word, sheep of the week, fruit of the week and so many other things I've been wanting to do but haven't had enough internet time.
I also won't need to wait until my boss is out of the room and sneakily access my blog at work anymore.
But I probably still will.
It's all a bit strange, much like everything else to do with communications in this neck of the woods. When Dave the friendly BT engineer connected us, he mentioned that there was already a 'jumper' on the line, so we should be able to connect to our broadband ISP straight away. This confused me, since we didn't actually have a broadband ISP. Sure, I applied for a cheap deal that was going on back in January, but as the weeks drew out into months waiting for the phone line to be connected, I emailed that company and told them to forget about it. There were bound to be better deals available when I finally got my phone line, after all. I never received the connection pack - modem, installation CD and whatnot - so I assumed they had forgotten about it as instructed.
But there was the small matter of that jumper on the line. It got me thinking, and at the weekend I delved through the mess of emails that had accumulated in my inbox over the months. Up until today, I've only been able to download emails by taking my laptop to a wifi hotspot, and usually there hasn't been time to deal with them there. I always reasoned that I'd sort through them once I got home, deleting those unwanted, filing those needing kept, drafting replies where necessary that could then be sent next time I was near a wifi hotspot.
This, of course, is not how it happened. Instead I would download up to a hundred emails, scan through them for anything interesting, read it, and leave the rest to deal with later.
Later was last weekend, as it happened, and in amongst about seven hundred offers for enlarged manhood and dodgy qualifications was an email from my intended ISP dated early March. It contained a customer account code, username and password, amongst other things. So I set up my wireless router, plugged in the relevant details, hit the 'connect' button and voila! Internet a go go.
Today I finally got around to phoning up the ISP and asking them what was going on. According to one person my account has been active since March, although in all that time they have never tried to take any money from me despite having my credit card details on file. According to another person, my account is inactive and there is no way it should be working. Quite frankly I don't care. I'm typing this now, and when I've finished I'll be able to update today's word, sheep of the week, fruit of the week and so many other things I've been wanting to do but haven't had enough internet time.
I also won't need to wait until my boss is out of the room and sneakily access my blog at work anymore.
But I probably still will.
Comments
The least that effing BT can give you in recompensation for the mess is FREE internet for the rest of your life.