The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

It's now reached a stage where MSE is almost unusable... as are most sites. I swear it's getting slower by the hour!

I'll check again....

EDIT: Nope, still the same slow speed... it just feels slower....

*sighs*

Dongles... used those in the past, they work... bet that's a better idea!

I think the big issue is whether I need a landline or not. Trouble is, although "nobody calls me", it is a number I've got with everybody and the number that's registered for all manner of things.... so I'm loathe to let it go. BT Landline alone is £15/month.

So, if I cut broadband out I'd have £35/month spare ... but could I get something cheaper than that.... maybe there's a simple "no contract" broadband only... operating over a mobile service....

I need to find out who my smartphone is with. I only use it for taking photos, as I can't see the screen (too small) and the battery doesn't last that long - and they're all fiddly. I just bought it to use as a "handy/small phone" really.

All my phone/broadband's in an utter mess really.... but it's all so complex to try to sort out.

Nothing's like the old days when things were nice and straight forward.

The world's gone mad on "deals" and you can't buy anything without a deal and a contract.

When you go to the newsagent and ask them to get you Chat once a week, they don't sign you up to an 18 month deal ... then when you decide after a month it's rubbish and want to cancel that and have Take a Break instead, they don't say "Ah, but you signed up for 18 months of Chat, so you have to pay that and then sign up for 18 months of Take a Break".



That's how things used to be for everything... you wanted something, you bought it - no contracts. Mobile phones started all this bl00dy contract nonsense.... and it's been perpetuated by sites like MSE promoting "deals" and "packages" .... and now everybody's on this life-wasting system that only works for ... the sales dept.

If they stopped offering deals and just said "here's the price if you want it" we'd all be better off.... and people wouldn't be chopping and changing at all; in the main we don't want to change... so we'd just sign up and keep going.

I'm not on a contract with BT, I've been with them 18 years, maybe nearly 30 years (with a minor break) .... and now they will only sell me fibre if I commit to a deal on an 18 month contract.

Well I'm not having it! Ya hear!!

vivatifosi

If you know someone with a reasonably new tablet, would it be worth their doing a reading on your WiFi to see if it scores any better?

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

If you know someone with a reasonably new tablet, would it be worth their doing a reading on your WiFi to see if it scores any better?

If I did ... probably not. It's not my wifi, it's the broadband and/or the PC reaching the end of its life. Tomorrow I'll know if it's the PC (unless something catastrophic happens there when I plug it in).

I only know one person - and they've no tablet and an ancient laptop that takes a week to boot up, so they don't use it except under duress.

vivatifosi

Oh yes, of course you will. Doh! I'm being a bit thick. That's what happens when you post with one eye on the football.


Speaking of which.... Yessssssssssss!!!!!!!

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

Yessssssssssss!!!!!!!

Sooo common.

I just heard a big manly scream/shout and feared there were drunks in the street fighting... so upstairs I trotted... nothing out front, nothing out the back, then I heard it again ....

I do dislike the necessity for people to shout so loudly over "just a game"....

It's disconcerting.

I can't currently decide if I'm living two doors from the type of mindless thug that shouts out while having windows/doors wide open and the telly so loud I can hear it, or if it's from nine doors away.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

1.30 Mbps download
0.35 Mbps upload
Latency: 86 ms
Server: London

Why are you on a server based in London?????

Being practical, you need fibre in your next place, so transferring a contract that gives you fibre shouldn't be an issue. If you are thinking of moving to a place that doesn't offer fibre, then your provider should allow you out of the contract, though I would question why you would move somewhere where you can't get a decent internet speed.

ukmaggie45

Pastures, at the caravan I currently pay £28 a month for broadband and landline from Zen Internet. No free calls on landline, but we hardly use it - standard call charges like BT from the few we've made. It's a one year contract, but they're helpful if you need to change to different house. Great customer service too, very nice Tech people who don't make you feel stupid if you ask stupid questions.

Since you have BT at the mo you should be able to swap to them if you wanted to I think. I'm currently getting a bit over 4mbs download and about 1 for uploading. At the end of the line where it cuts out if the weather's wet as it's close to the sea and often dead windy. It's fast enough for me to watch TV on computer, and also do the catch up stuff on new smart TV as well.

I don't think Zen are the cheapest, but I've always found them to be very kind and helpful - goes a long way for me as cognitively challenged with the ME/CFS.

They do faster stuff too, but at the caravan I currently don't need it.

At least their help is in this country and not elsewhere!

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

Sooo common.

Pastures, Pastures, Pastures...


How many years have we both been around the NPT? And how many times have I warranted a posh alert? I can't help it, it is genetic:D

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

Why are you on a server based in London?????

I didn't choose that, that's what the online BB speed checker gave me when I ran it.

silvercar wrote: »

Being practical, you need fibre .... I would question why you would move somewhere where you can't get a decent internet speed.

You can't always tell where fibre is if you're looking at houses, unless you start from the other end and get a list of places and then only look at houses there.

There are many many places that don't have it (this place didn't even have it to offer when I moved in).

I've no idea re fibre coverage in the county, never had to think about it.

And, if my own provider could actually give to me the 10MB they use as their headline for their "Standard Broadband" I'd be as happy as Larry ... so, looking at this house, if we ignored all the fibre, the BT website tells me that this house is a 10MB house.... the liars.

So who do you trust? How do you really know as you go through RM if a house could get it or not .... as BT lie on their own webpage when I put in my postcode and select my house and it says I could have 10MB BB.

Pyxis

Pastures, when I've been somewhere where there's no landline connection, I've used a PAYG thing called "BT-wifi-with-FON".

It's dependantt on there being one of their hotspots nearby, but you can pay for one hour £4.99, one day £7.99, 5 days £17.99, or 30 days £39, or you can mix and match. Sometimes they have special offers.

It's usually used for a temporary thing, though, but if you don't want to use the internet very often, it might be an option.