Visit Siani's Other Blogs

Visit Gower Strange Days

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Speed freak


I have broadband at last. I'm stuck with an ugly great loose length of cable running across the room to my cable modem at the moment, because my main computer is a laptop. If the cable had been clipped, I'd have been stuck with having to sit right next to the modem, in a fixed location. As it is, I can move my modem with me as I move around the room. But I'll have a wireless router soon, as I can get one for £30 from the ntl shop.

As for the service itself, I initially had a problem. I couldn't connect to a single page at Pete Burns's site - a major catastrophe in my eyes. When I discovered the problem, I still had AOL, and I could view the site without a problem if I connected via AOL. But ntl refused to let me view it, in either IE7 or Firefox. It took me about half an hour to convince ntl tech support it was their fault not mine. I persuaded the woman I spoke to, to test the site for herself. She did, and as soon as she caught sight of Pete Burns, I heard her draw in breath and go 'oh my goodness, it's a man' - which amused me. But I was finally given the IP addresses of six or seven proxy servers to try, and the last one of all solved the problem.

I upgraded my Windows Media Player a few moments ago, and was absolutely staggered when the download, which would have taken about 90 minutes with my old dial up service, completed in about a minute and a half. When I called AOL last night to say I no longer required their service, the guy asked me why I was leaving. I said 'the only broadband option you can offer me, as an ntl phone customer, is a 1 MB connection for £24.99. I've just got twice the speed for £13.99. So, I'm sorry, AOL just doesn't compare'. He did try to persuade me to go with them for broadband, offering a couple of free months, but I just laughed and said, 'sorry mate, nice try, but like I said, freebies or no freebies, I'm not paying £24.99 for 1 MB broadband. Cancel my account please'. So he finally got the message - phew.

Looking forward to taking some new Gower pics now, when the storms subside, as I'll be able to upload them in seconds. I HATED uploading pics to this blog, as it took so long. Oh well, I'm off to find something else to download now, so I can marvel at the speed.

No comments:

 
ss_blog_claim=80361ebb90d0aa68f7212d099b7ed341