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How Easy Is It To Get Broadband In Belfast?
It's taken over a month but I finally have internet access at home again. Some of you may remember I moved house on 27th May and it has taken me until now (well yesterday to be pedantic about it) to get decent internet access at home. Read on for details of the trials, tribulations and complications I came across trying to do something as straightforward as get broadband installed.
Follow up:
Off To A Standing Start With NTL
It all began with NTL, who I'd been using for broadband in my previous house. I called them up to cancel a month before the move (way back at the end of April) to give my 30 days notice. They offered me a great incentive to stay, so I figured what the hell. Half price broadband for 3 months, free home move and no commitment to stay for a set period of time. They said they'd have to check my house could receive broadband because it was on private land (my house isn't actually on the main road but tucked in behind the houses on it). After a week and a half or so, I hadn't heard anything and called to check. At that time I was informed that everything was fine and the home move was scheduled for the afternoon of Saturday 28th. Excellent stuff.
Saturday 28th came and the engineers came to install the broadband, but of course the house I moved into, being off the main road, hadn't been cabled at all. Despite being assured on the phone that they'd done whatever checks they needed to do and there was no problem, there was a problem. The apartments hadn't been cabled so no NTL.
Back To BT ... Eventually
Looks like I'll be trying ADSL then. Of course ADSL requires a BT phone line, and they won't actually tell you whether or not your line can do ADSL until you've got it activated. Because nobody had service with BT at this address for so long they said they'd have to send an engineer out, meaning a minimum 3 month term. So I could be spending £31.50 on a line that I can't even get internet on!! It gets better... the BT advisor then tells me that they can't get an engineer out to my address for 2 weeks! Having little choice but to agree, I arrange an appointment for 13th June... and I wait.
Come 11th June (my birthday actually) I wake up to find a text message telling me that BT will supply service to my number without fulfilling the engineer visit and to call them if I didn't have service by the agreed date of 13th. The reason they couldn't have just done that in the first place instead of making me wait 15 days escapes me!!
Got The Line, Now For The Net!
So the line' s up and going, I do a broadband check. I can only get 1Mbps on my line - bummer. Well that's ok I only wanted Tiscali's 512kbps package anyway because it's the best priced package I could find that had a decent cap (30GB/month). There's one problem though. Tiscali tell me that they can't provide service because the line is "amber" meaning they can't be certain of quality coverage so they refuse to provide any. Despite explaining to the girl on the phone that the reason was likely the 1Mbps limit BT told me about, and her agreeing, she insisted there was nothing she could do. Ballocks!
A day or two later I'm browsing the net from another location looking for broadband deals and I end up at BT's wholesale site which also has a broadband checker. I enter in my phone number to this one and surprise surprise it tells me I can get 2MB service as well now! I go back to Tiscali and sure enough their internet checker now tells me I can have broadband. So I order it, noting with disappointment that their site says it can take up to 15 days to fulfill an order
I soon get an email informing me that their engineers will be carrying out a "comprehensive line test" at the exchange. No bother. It also tells me I should be able to connect by 30th June. Since this was June 15th, the 30th seemed quite far away!! *sigh*
Saved?
Around this time I worked out too that I can get dial up at home through my Freeview box (a BT Digital TV Adaptor - made by Netgem and almost identical to their I-Player). My dialup modem on the PC seemed to be fried, but at least I could now access emails and read Everything Ulster (although I couldn't make posts because that requires a login which utilises cookies; a feature my box doesn't support apparently). Hooray - slow internet! It's like breathing in second-hand smoke for someone trying to quit smoking though - better than nothing but leaving you frustrated and wanting more. It's like a trickling stream compared to the flowing river of broadband.
Tiscali Trouble
Anyway: 1 week later, I get update 2 in my inbox. The line's ready to go and I just need the modem, which they've just dispatched by Royal Mail. I can hardly contain myself... Unfortunately after another week I still don't have anything from them. I check their website and get an order tracking number. They call it a Parcelforce number and I go to Parcelforce's website to check it. They've never heard of that tracking number, and it doesn't even look like it's in the right format! It's also too short to be a Royal Mail tracking number.
I give Tiscali customer services a call and explain I haven't got anything now 5 working days after dispatch. After trying to explain the situation 2 or 3 times to a call advisor (I think their call centre's in India and the line quality is poor) she finally understands what I'm telling her and agrees to send out a new one.
That was on Wednesday and it arrived yesterday. More disappointment. As well as the connection lead (RJ11) being too short (I've just spent £9.99 on a 10m extension cable), the modem they send is the Sagem Fast 800. The Fast 800, while delightfully tiny, is only capable of connecting via USB (the cheap option). It says it all when you look at it on the Tiscali shop website: and all they can find to say under "What's good?" is "It's Blue."
The problem is I already had a broadband router with built in firewall which would have been great, except it only allows ethernet connections. This means that not only does my CPU get worked a little harder because it has another USB connection, I also have to turn on that damn Windows software firewall instead of using a proper hardware one. So I think I'll by treating myself to th D-Link DSL-300T ADSL Ethernet Modem which seems to have received decent reviews.
SUCCESS!!
Anyway, getting online: after a brief (6 min) call to Tiscali's 0870 tech support (again in India and over a poor line) I got connected - and only a day after they said. The self-install guide was pretty good and I reckon even my dad could install it following the directions. The speed seems pretty good (which backs up my theory that faster broadband isn't relevant for a single-home PC user).