Wireless Broadband - No contracts, no Installation & Immediate use

The BT rollout has already rolled out to our area.  Our house is just too far away from any cabinet for it to benefit us.  So we're on old-school ADSL and wondering if we'll ever get a nearer cabinet or fiber to the premises (doubtful... I genuinely think they are satisfied with the coverage they have in our region).

Do you have the energy to keep at them until they find you so annoying that they'd rather fix your service...?

Do you have the energy to keep at them until they find you so annoying that they'd rather fix your service...?

Maaaaaybe.  If my make-do ADSL service from TalkTalk was less reliable, I would work harder at it.  But we are making do.  And right now we don't have the time to make Minecraft videos, so we don't really need faster upload speed... for now.  But eventually, I would hope that we catch up to the rest of the country before they move on even more. There's a lot of development happening relatively near to us (a retail centre going in, and a housing estate or two), so maybe BT will see the value in improving services out our way.

Just wanted to pop in to note that the Digital Economy Act coming into force later this year includes provision for the establishment of a Broadband USO (amongst other telecoms reforms that will help operators access sites to put up better equipment without paying ludicrous sums in rent to landowners). It essentially gives every premises in the UK the legal right to request a minimum standard of connectivity, expected to be about 10Mbps (down).

Now how that works out exactly and when and implementation... who knows!

My aunt and uncle were recently holidaying in Wales and I would receive intermittent texts from her complaining that it was like living in 1978 without having decent wifi coverage. We were in Sweden in May and I happily spent the 2 hour journey on the train to Goteborg using the excellent fast free internet service supplied. That is years away for the UK.

We just found out our new house we're moving to won't have high speed internet until at least January and only Bt is offering it. A winter with slow internet, we may just kill each other


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We just found out our new house we're moving to won't have high speed internet until at least January and only Bt is offering it. A winter with slow internet, we may just kill each other

At least you have a forecasted date.  Ours just says "Not available" and "check with xyz to find out what your options are."  It's so disheartening.

At least you have a forecasted date.  Ours just says "Not available" and "check with xyz to find out what your options are."  It's so disheartening.

Very true. Funny how frustrating it is to it have good internet but gosh probably twenty or so years ago we were happy dial up.


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Very true. Funny how frustrating it is to it have good internet but gosh probably twenty or so years ago we were happy dial up.

I remember the first time I had Internet access at home that was so fast I could download an mp3 faster than it took to play it, so as soon as I found a song, I could start listening instantly.  That would only need to be about 1Mbps, I think.    First time I had that was in 2002.

I've been on the Internet since the mid 90's. I remember the dial up tone of the modem and the BBS's. I remember getting access to super fast 56k speeds! I could download something in a day that would normally take 2. Good times.

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I've been on the Internet since the mid 90's. I remember the dial up tone of the modem and the BBS's. I remember getting access to super fast 56k speeds! I could download something in a day that would normally take 2. Good times.

My first modem was "2600 baud".  I remember moving to a 56k and how much faster it was.  But it still took ages to download anything useful.  I think I remember a typical low bitrate mp3 took about 20 minutes to download.  I couldn't afford to wait for higher quality rips, so my early digital music collection was pretty rubbish.

Remember waiting for a picture to download line by line? You had time to start the download, go to the bathroom (at a leisurely pace), make a snack (at a leisurely pace), play with the dog/mow the lawn etc and MAYBE it would have downloaded by the time you were done with all that.

Or the fights over using the telephone/waiting for an important call. We had set internet times because of that.

Remember waiting for a picture to download line by line? You had time to start the download, go to the bathroom (at a leisurely pace), make a snack (at a leisurely pace), play with the dog/mow the lawn etc and MAYBE it would have downloaded by the time you were done with all that.

Or the fights over using the telephone/waiting for an important call. We had set internet times because of that.

My mother solved that real quick by giving me my own phone line.  I had to choose between phone or Internet, but that was not a hard decision to make.  Meanwhile, the rest of the family were unaffected.

Hi,

Fair enough on the points raised about there not being any or a poor signal for the 3 solution to be useful ! For those new arrivals into the UK who do get a good or usable signal it's a good way of getting online very quickly without all the usual red tape !

Many people do indeed remember the early days of modems and their bit rates ! the next generation won't know any of that and will be used to fast internet only !

As for those living in very rural/semi rural areas, at least you have all that open space and much less congestion!

Cheers, DtM! West London and Slough UK!

Remember waiting for a picture to download line by line? You had time to start the download, go to the bathroom (at a leisurely pace), make a snack (at a leisurely pace), play with the dog/mow the lawn etc and MAYBE it would have downloaded by the time you were done with all that.

Or the fights over using the telephone/waiting for an important call. We had set internet times because of that.

Oh gosh, or the line would drop when you were 3/4ths of the way through a download. I used to use a Twinhead computer (built by the Twinhead company in a garage somewhere in SoCalif) and dial into the local BBS using RedRyder....

I saved that computer and software all these years for some reason. It's in my closet right now, amber monitor and all. I think when we get everything else put away (we are still unpacking) I'm going to hook it up and see if it still works, after having been lugged around the world for 30 years. I do remember when we got our first 2400 baud modem and how flaming fast it was.