Cheapo broadband, a warning

MartinM said:

BT

It doesn't matter who you buy your broadband from; BT will always be
involved. And they are friggin' useless 85% of the time.

On Thu, 19 May 2005 13:25:08 +0100 someone who may be "Simonb"
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

It doesn't matter who you buy your broadband from; BT will always be
involved.

If it is DSL using one of their lines.

Quoted message said:

And they are friggin' useless 85% of the time.

Here I will stand up for British Telecom. Being a large organisation
they are vulnerable to the incompetence of some staff and managers.

However, I have found their technical people generally very good. In
the case of ADSL in my house the "installation" and speed upgrade
were done days before they were due to be done. I am loath to say
this, as they will probably decide there are too many staff in the
location.

Other parts of their organisation, such as accounts, are dire.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

MartinM said:

I have now waited exactly 1 month for BT B'stards to re-connect my
broadband connection to my new home, even though I kept the same ISP
(tiscali) and telephone number. And they charge £50 for the
privilege!!
Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of moving ;-(
other than that the service from the actual ISP is very good.

Heh. If that's the worst of your moving worries, you're laughing.
But yes, BT need organising in advance: I refused to move until
the phone line and ADSL had been installed. And no, the b*****s
wouldn't install both at once, despite my telling them which of
those services it is I care about (excluding data, I could survive
on a mobile).

Did you move through choice, or because you got marching orders?
I don't suppose my recent landlady is the only one looking to
sell before the bubble bursts.

--
Nick Kew

David Hansen said:

However, I have found their technical people generally very good. In
the case of ADSL in my house the "installation" and speed upgrade
were done days before they were due to be done.

This has not been the case, in my experiences with BT.

Nick Kew said:

MartinM said:

I have now waited exactly 1 month for BT B'stards to re-connect my
broadband connection to my new home, even though I kept the same

ISP

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

(tiscali) and telephone number. And they charge £50 for the
privilege!!
Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of moving ;-(
other than that the service from the actual ISP is very good.

Heh. If that's the worst of your moving worries, you're laughing.

You are right, it's not, but it would be nice to see the Wickes etc
kitchen we desperately need before driving up to look at it. The
problem with broadband is that other people sort of get used to you
being on line all the time and e-mail you accordingly, then assume you
have fallen down a hole when you don't reply until 5 days later or
whenever you log on at work (which I am now doing) all part of the
techno revolution I suppose. Audax rides are now my sole preserve of
not being contactable; I carry a phone but don't switch it on.

Nick Kew said:

Did you move through choice, or because you got marching orders?

well neither I suppose, no-one in their right mind would choose to take
an extra £95k mortgage, but unless you want to live i't shoe box i't
middle o road it's unavoidable in the SE, Mr Brown's concessions to
home owners and working families don't apply down here (you can't even
get a telephone box below the lower Stamp duty threshold, and to afford
anything other than said shoe box you both need to be earning over the
top limit of family working thingy)

MartinM said:

Nick Kew said:

Did you move through choice, or because you got marching orders?

well neither I suppose, no-one in their right mind would choose to take
an extra £95k mortgage, but unless you want to live i't shoe box i't
middle o road it's unavoidable in the SE, Mr Brown's concessions to
home owners and working families don't apply down here (you can't even
get a telephone box below the lower Stamp duty threshold, and to afford
anything other than said shoe box you both need to be earning over the
top limit of family working thingy)

Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
(and highly taxed) income.

--
Nick Kew

MartinM said:

Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of moving ;-(

I'm a bit confused - I'm also moving house soon and I was assuming
"installation" would just be a case of plugging the adsl filters into
the phone sockets at the new place (I have already checked that
broadband is available at my new address).

Am I missing something?

d.

"Simonb" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MartinM said:

BT

It doesn't matter who you buy your broadband from; BT will always be
involved.

Not in Kingston upon Hull though. We are tied to the Kingston Communications
monopoly and cannot get a BT line. My 3MB connection cost 39 UKP p.m !

--
Simon Mason
http://www.simonmason.karoo.net

Nick Kew said:

Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
(and highly taxed) income.

That is a seriously bad idea, IMO. The cause of the problem where I
live is partly buy-to-let, but mostly lack of available building land.
And that is down to politics, plain and simple. There is no shortage
of level ground, no shortage of farmers who would be perfectly happy
to sell off a few acres for development, no shortage of builders and
developers willing to build - but planning controls are such that it
is not allowed to happen. Oxfordshire are still in a huff about
Berkshire's last "land grab", which became Caversham Park Village.

With people living longer and the decline of the traditional family,
the number of houses required per head of the population is growing.
There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
houses. And build them where people want to live. All taxes do is
further distort the market.

Blimey! Free market thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

davek said:

MartinM said:

Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of moving ;-(

I'm a bit confused - I'm also moving house soon and I was assuming
"installation" would just be a case of plugging the adsl filters into
the phone sockets at the new place (I have already checked that
broadband is available at my new address).

Am I missing something?

sure are if you get your broadband thru a BT line; BT impose a flat
£50 fee for changing it over which is passed down to you. One
alternative is to sign up for a dial up account now and change your
e-mail addy, then upgrade to broadband after you have moved, I think
they waive the sign-up costs now for new business. Pain in the [censored] to
re-configure your browser though, I gave up.

I would like to know what highly technical thing BT need to do in the
exchange when you move, either nothing or flick a switch probably.

Not in Kingston upon Hull though. We are tied to the Kingston
Communications
monopoly and cannot get a BT line. My 3MB connection cost 39 UKP p.m !

Oh yeah; you have those white phone boxes n'est pas? was that some sort
of Thatcherite pilot scheme?

Just zis Guy said:

On Thu, 19 May 2005 16:17:36 +0100, Nick Kew
<[email hidden]> wrote:

OK, we are now moving into extreme OT territory here but, what the hell,
it's a subject I am deeply interested in.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
(and highly taxed) income.

That is a seriously bad idea, IMO. The cause of the problem where I
live is partly buy-to-let,

Has buy-to-let fundamentally altered the housing market or will it
simply magnify the swings? I don't know and I haven't had enough idle
hours to come up with a theory.

OTOH, maybe the availability of quality rental stock acts to create a
culture where rental is seen as acceptable - after all, in today's
climate of a mobile workforce renting has its attractions.

OTOH, when prices start to turn down, as they always do in a cycle, will
the stretched buy-to-letters rush to leave the market, flooding it with
properties and ensuring that the crash they have prophecised is
fulfilled? Guy's view is that buy-to-letters have emphasised the price
/rise/ so, if he's right, they'll have the same effect when the fall comes.

Quoted message said:

but mostly lack of available building land.

Depends on your scale. Nationally, there is no shortage of building
land. Trouble is the glut of building land happens not to be where
people want to live. And land is a bugger of a resource to ship around
the Kingdom.

Quoted message said:

And that is down to politics, plain and simple.

Yes. And, largely with good reason.

Quoted message said:

There is no shortage
of level ground, no shortage of farmers who would be perfectly happy
to sell off a few acres for development, no shortage of builders and
developers willing to build - but planning controls are such that it
is not allowed to happen. Oxfordshire are still in a huff about
Berkshire's last "land grab", which became Caversham Park Village.

With people living longer and the decline of the traditional family,
the number of houses required per head of the population is growing.
There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
houses.

Agreed. But this doesn't necessarily require vast acreages of green fields.

Quoted message said:

And build them where people want to live.

We can argue against this in a hundred and one different ways but, let's
settle on sustainability and transport as a starter.

What people would like is to live in intensely low density developments.
That means suburban sprawl; long travel distances and car dependance.
And that's discounting any loss of biodiversity. Although I believe that
given today's industrial agriculture, good urban development is likely
to enhance rather than reduce biodiversity.

Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it would
otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as a
cyclist and an environmentalist.

Being more subjective, I also place value on retaining a distinction
between rural and urban landscapes. A total free market approach would
result in low density, suburban sprawl between the South Coast and
Peterborough. I would not enjoy this but accept this is a personal
viewpoint without much of objective substance to back it up.

Quoted message said:

All taxes do is
further distort the market.

Blimey! Free market thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

Blimey! Central control economy thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

Just zis Guy said:

Nick Kew said:

Too late now, but what's really needed is much higher stamp duty.
If we'd had that in the past, property wouldn't be quite such a
uniquely tax-efficient investment, and we wouldn't have such a
huge boom-and-bust market, nor house price rises that dwarf earned
(and highly taxed) income.

That is a seriously bad idea, IMO. The cause of the problem where I
live is partly buy-to-let, but mostly lack of available building land.
And that is down to politics, plain and simple. There is no shortage
of level ground, no shortage of farmers who would be perfectly happy
to sell off a few acres for development, no shortage of builders and
developers willing to build - but planning controls are such that it
is not allowed to happen. Oxfordshire are still in a huff about
Berkshire's last "land grab", which became Caversham Park Village.

With people living longer and the decline of the traditional family,
the number of houses required per head of the population is growing.
There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
houses. And build them where people want to live. All taxes do is
further distort the market.

Blimey! Free market thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

🙂

Property is unique amongst the investments that most people actually
make in being free of capital gains tax on your primary residence (and
the btl crowd can take advantage of this by living in a property for a
suitable period of time before selling it on when they want to cash
out of their portfolio).

Planning is a nightmare in this country by all accounts. I understand
that the Germans self-build[1] the majority of their new housing
stock. The overheads involved in getting planning permission make that
almost impossible here.

Phil

[1] Not necessarily build the house with their own hands you
understand, but choose a plot and have the house built to spec.

--
http://www.kantaka.co.uk/ .oOo. public key: http://www.kantaka.co.uk/gpg.txt

"Not Responding" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it would
otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as a cyclist
and an environmentalist.

What would be a Seriously Good Thing, IMO, would be much higher standard of
building regs as regards sound insulation of buildings, so that in the high
density development, the noise of your neighbours wasn't forced on you
through thin walls... Those Europeans could teach us a thing or two about
decent building standards.

Cheers, helen s

wafflycat said:

"Not Responding" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it
would otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as
a cyclist and an environmentalist.

What would be a Seriously Good Thing, IMO, would be much higher standard
of building regs as regards sound insulation of buildings, so that in
the high density development, the noise of your neighbours wasn't forced
on you through thin walls... Those Europeans could teach us a thing or
two about decent building standards.

The most recent building reg update place very stringent[1] requirements
on sound insulation; an essential enabler for higher density development.

I am, of course, in danger of being accused as the ultimate hypocrite; I
am a great supporter of high density, low travel distance, sustainable
development but choose to live with acres of garden and surrounded by
fields, trees and privacy. In mitigation, I do live close enough to
school, shops, town, rail station, work etc to be car free.

[1] Stringent compared to what was acceptable previously. I'm told that
it's a good standard but have not road tested it myself.

wafflycat' waffles*AT*v21net*DOT*co*DOT*uk said:

"Not Responding" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it
would otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both
as a cyclist and an environmentalist.

What would be a Seriously Good Thing, IMO, would be much higher
standard of building regs as regards sound insulation of buildings,
so that in the high density development, the noise of your neighbours
wasn't forced on you through thin walls... Those Europeans could
teach us a thing or two about decent building standards.

There were supposed to be stricter "part E" building regs in force for new
builds from 1st Jan 2004, but not totally sure how much better these regs
are than the previous regs.

Not Responding said:

Has buy-to-let fundamentally altered the housing market or will it
simply magnify the swings? I don't know and I haven't had enough idle
hours to come up with a theory.

Around here it seems to have distorted it, but this is a university
town.

Quoted message said:

OTOH, maybe the availability of quality rental stock acts to create a
culture where rental is seen as acceptable - after all, in today's
climate of a mobile workforce renting has its attractions.

It might work if we had the "rentier" class as in France, but for the
most part it is people mortgaging the property and then renting it out
for more than the mortgage payments to people who, for the most part,
can't get a mortgage because the bank won't lend them that much.

Quoted message said:

OTOH, when prices start to turn down, as they always do in a cycle, will
the stretched buy-to-letters rush to leave the market, flooding it with
properties and ensuring that the crash they have prophecised is
fulfilled?

I will do my best not to laugh out loud if it does...

Quoted message said:

Guy's view is that buy-to-letters have emphasised the price
/rise/ so, if he's right, they'll have the same effect when the fall comes.

Almost certainly, yes. They further distort an already distorted
market.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

but mostly lack of available building land.

Quoted message said:

Depends on your scale. Nationally, there is no shortage of building
land. Trouble is the glut of building land happens not to be where
people want to live. And land is a bugger of a resource to ship around
the Kingdom.

But lots of people want to live here, and the only thing preventing
more houses being built is politics.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And that is down to politics, plain and simple.

Yes. And, largely with good reason.

For some values of good ;-)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

With people living longer and the decline of the traditional family,
the number of houses required per head of the population is growing.
There is only one real way to fix that, and that's to build more
houses.

Quoted message said:

Agreed. But this doesn't necessarily require vast acreages of green fields.

Around here? Precious little else available. There is no significant
brown field potential around me.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

And build them where people want to live.

We can argue against this in a hundred and one different ways but, let's
settle on sustainability and transport as a starter.

What's unsustainable about a place 20 minutes by train from London?

Quoted message said:

What people would like is to live in intensely low density developments.
That means suburban sprawl; long travel distances and car dependance.

They seem quite happy with high density here, there just isn't any to
be had!

Quoted message said:

Planning rules force sustainable high density development where it would
otherwise not arise. This is a Good Thing IMO, speaking both as a
cyclist and an environmentalist.

Yebbut once the vessel id full...

Quoted message said:

Being more subjective, I also place value on retaining a distinction
between rural and urban landscapes. A total free market approach would
result in low density, suburban sprawl between the South Coast and
Peterborough.

Actually I don't necessarily think it would. I think the same market
forces would stop it happening.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Blimey! Free market thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

Blimey! Central control economy thinking from me! Who'd have thought it?

Yes, interesting bit of role reversal :-)

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible...

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

Simon Mason said:

"Simonb" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MartinM said:

BT

It doesn't matter who you buy your broadband from; BT will always be
involved.

Not in Kingston upon Hull though. We are tied to the Kingston Communications
monopoly and cannot get a BT line. My 3MB connection cost 39 UKP p.m !

and it's only DSL you need to get from BT. If you live somewhere with
Cable TV it's likely your cable provider can give you a broadband
connection using a cable modem.

Julesh

In message <[email hidden]>,
davek <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

MartinM said:

Something to bear in mind if you are thinking of moving ;-(

I'm a bit confused - I'm also moving house soon and I was assuming
"installation" would just be a case of plugging the adsl filters into
the phone sockets at the new place (I have already checked that
broadband is available at my new address).

Am I missing something?

The ADSL needs to be 'activated' on the particular line involved at the
exchange, at the moment this takes about a week from when you place the
order with your chosen ISP.

Note this means that if you are moving into a house where someone else
lives and has the phone line in their name already you can't preorder
the ADSL before the move. ADSL is tied to a particular line/number and
user, so you can't order the ADSL until you have the line/number in your
name. So get organised and stick in your order as soon as you can if you
want to minimise the delay.

I ordered my ADSL over the recent bank holiday weekend, the ADSL appears
to have been enabled over the following weekend (I was given the
following Tuesday), but couldn't use it until the Monday as I didn't
have the login details until then.

It's a bit sad how much I missed it really for that week.

RE the OP, it's really down to BT the extra cost, for the reasons stated
above, as they levy the charge, not Tiscali
--
Chris French