Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 June 2007 18:13:25
I spent 2 hours this morning trying to set-up a family friend's broadband connection. This is a continuation of last Saturday morning's trial.
After checking everything, changing microfilters and reinstalling drivers etc we got nowhere. So I did the standard thing of calling BT's broadband helpline. This took some effort as the number provided on their installation disk and paperwork is incorrect. You dial the number and get nothing. After 10 minutes of dialling through automated menus I finally got the correct number to call. Then spent another 10 minutes going through automated menus before speaking to a nice man - in India.
It is very difficult to understand someone from India when the connection fades in and out. He was being very helpful but would disappear for short periods of time and then reappear. It turned out that he was on the phone to someone in the UK who was testing the line.
The upshot was that they didn't know why the DSL connection would work 100% downstairs but be intermitent upstairs. However there was a unique solution.
It appears that when a line is connected for the first time it takes 10 days for the signal to stabilise itself and find the right speed and strength. Our friend has only been connected for 7 days. Therefore we have to leave it until Monday and then try again. If we still get no joy then we have to call them back and go through things again.
This could mean moving the PC from the upstairs home office downstairs to the main line box. Then we may have to reinstall the upstairs extension and replace the provided DSL cable.
What happened to plug and play? Even my MP3 won't work on both my PC's. It'll work on the laptop but not the desktop. So much for making life easier.