Switching your home Internet from BT to another provider can, I’ve discovered, be quite a chore. You need something called a MAC Code to facilitate the switchover. Last Thursday, after a ten-minute lecture on how terrible the ‘competition’ is, BT finally gave me a code. It didn’t work. I called again and got another code—it was one letter shorter than the previous one. This didn’t work either. I called again and they insisted the second code was valid and I couldn’t get another one until May 15th—and if it didn’t work it was the other company’s fault.
Today I had a final stab at it. The person I spoke to gave me the second code again. When I pointed out that the ‘competition’ (Sky) told me the first code looked more ‘right’ than the second, he disappeared for five minutes and said he had a new code for me!! This time it was a completely different code… and it worked. It took four phone calls to get this code from them and he couldn’t explain how they’d managed it when previously I was told I couldn’t get a new one till May 15th (‘The other one must have expired,’ he unconvincingly suggested). Do I smell a rat? I don’t know. But consider this a word of warning if you might be in a similar position.
As a result of these shenanigans, I am without home wifi for approx two weeks. Here’s where I express some Good Stuff. I knew it was possible to ‘tether’ an iPhone to your home computer (basically using the phone’s carrier as a home Internet connection), but I have never been able to receive a 3G carrier inside my home. Calling Three Mobile on Saturday, I discovered that, in fact, my 3G reception was being blocked by my home wireless router (it was still connected, though due to be disconnected). I switched the wifi off on my fone and voila! A nice, strong 3G signal that hasn’t gone below four bars so far.
Here’s the really amusing bit. Uploading two Grandville Bete Noire pages I colour-flatted yesterday for Bryan Talbot—I discovered the 3G connection upload speed is roughly ten times faster than the BT wireless router was providing!!
Do I actually need a home wifi connection? Or is BT upload speed particularly awful?
Anyhow: thumbs-down to BT but big kudos to Three!
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on Tuesday, April 17th 2012 at 7:23 pm.
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That’s terrific, Chrissie. We’ve broken away from the duopoly (the phone company and the cable TV company) and are with a smaller, much more responsive third party provider. Sadly we’re still at the mercy of the Big Two for the actual wiring (the infrastructure, which they own) and service calls.