Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 9 August 2002, 6:19 PM
Friday
Friday 9/08/2002
Poor old Graham 'Don't Call Me Norton' Wearden, our broadband reporter and scourge of the dodgy telco. BT offered him ADSL free of charge for six months, so he could find out just how wonderful it is, and think warmly of BT the while. Our man G, not being one to shirk on his research, happily acquiesced to this offer, And lo, it came to pass that a man came out, stapled bits to Wearden's walls, and there he was. Broadbanded.
And then a couple of months later, off it went. Not a bit to be seen. No flashing lights, no half-meg a sec of business critical information flooding in (that was what you were downloading, Graham, wasn't it?), nothing. He phoned BT and was told "Well, the bill hasn't been paid". Graham, being firmly of the opinion that this was the whole idea, patiently explained. That was around a month ago. It would be nice to say that BT has sorted it all out by now, but it would be a lie.
There's only one thing worse than not having broadband, and that's having it only to see it taken away again. And there's only one thing worse than having a journalist suspect you're a company unable to find your RS-232 lead with both hands, and that's demonstrating it beyond doubt.
I would be with BT myself, but the company told me that I couldn't keep my line when I moved from one DSL enabled exchange to another, a mile down the road. Well, they told me eventually, after making and losing a couple of appointments... nice to see that in these turbulent telco times, some things never change.
Poor old Graham 'Don't Call Me Norton' Wearden, our broadband reporter and scourge of the dodgy telco. BT offered him ADSL free of charge for six months, so he could find out just how wonderful it is, and think warmly of BT the while. Our man G, not being one to shirk on his research, happily acquiesced to this offer, And lo, it came to pass that a man came out, stapled bits to Wearden's walls, and there he was. Broadbanded.
And then a couple of months later, off it went. Not a bit to be seen. No flashing lights, no half-meg a sec of business critical information flooding in (that was what you were downloading, Graham, wasn't it?), nothing. He phoned BT and was told "Well, the bill hasn't been paid". Graham, being firmly of the opinion that this was the whole idea, patiently explained. That was around a month ago. It would be nice to say that BT has sorted it all out by now, but it would be a lie.
There's only one thing worse than not having broadband, and that's having it only to see it taken away again. And there's only one thing worse than having a journalist suspect you're a company unable to find your RS-232 lead with both hands, and that's demonstrating it beyond doubt.
I would be with BT myself, but the company told me that I couldn't keep my line when I moved from one DSL enabled exchange to another, a mile down the road. Well, they told me eventually, after making and losing a couple of appointments... nice to see that in these turbulent telco times, some things never change.
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