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So I've moved. Out of my nice cozy lovely house into a more sparse one bedroomed flat just down the road. What do you mean you're not one of the several hundred people I've bored with my tale of woe as to why that is? Ok... I'll save that for another time - perhaps on a separate webpage. The point is, I'm now renting a place and the landlord isn't keen on having a Sky satellite dish on the side of their property, but they're OK about having a discreet cable running in for my TV services. So yup - yet again, I've got to bite the bullet and arrange a new installation with Telewest for my TV, and possibly my telephone - and what the heck, for a laugh I may even try their internet broadband service that they're so bloody keen on promoting.
Along with some other choice phrases used such as:
and (my favourite)
Things are going to be different? Really? Like not having to wait 40 minutes to get through to someone on the phone? Like not having to wait 2 weeks go get something installed in the first place? Like not having to wait 5 months to get the interactive service working? Wow, that would be good. Well I won't bore you with the story as to how many phone calls it took to arrange them to come and install it in the first place, but when I do eventually get put through and speak to someone who is (all to happy I think) to take on my custom, we agree on an installation date of Thursday 13th September between 8am and 12 noon. I can't wait...(!) Thursday 13th December 07:45 - Good morning. I've just got up... set my alarm in time, on the rare off chance that I'm the first on their installation list, and they do actually turn up at 8am. Can't but help think that I shouldn't be holding my breath though. 09:45 - I'm onto my second cup of tea of the day. Cereal, toast, etc. I even bothered to get dressed properly, rather than just be wearing my pants if and when they can be arsed to turn up. 11:00 - Well I've had a couple of concerned text messages from friends now. "Have they turned up yet?", "Any sign of cable?", etc... etc.. The answer is a resounding NO. I keep jumping up and looking out the window everytime I hear what might be a van pull up - but still no joy. 11:38 - They've turned up! I'm online chatting to someone via instant messenger, commenting at the fact that "They've only got 20 minutes left", when I hear the rumble of a diesel engine pull up outside...
I go down and open the door and the guys spots me and nods at me, so I nod back. This must be the professional personalised greeting which the glossy brochure talked about. There's three of them doing the install. Pretty soon they
discover a good piece of news - the flats that I live in appear to have
been pre-cabled. I didn't know this, but this is great news as I'd envisaged
them digging up half the front lawn to run their cable in. As it is, So they set about getting it installed. Clumping about my nice new rug in my lounge in their big dirty boots. They don't have a pair of wire cutters - luckily I do, and the chap that seems to know most about what he's doing (pictured) installs a junction box for me. The whole thing takes about 40 minutes. Although they didn't have to take me through how to operate it or how it worked as I knew how it worked from when I'd had it before. I think they were pleased as this obviously saved them a bit of time.
They do leave one thing behind though - a nice mess for me to clear up. Old cable ties, a whole piece of cable not doing anything - and a nice thin layer of brickdust all over my floorboards and skirting board. I don't have a dustpan and brush in my new place - so I pop down the shops later specifically to buy one.
12:26 - They're gone... is that one of their quickest installs ever? I reckon it must just be - they must be well chuffed. As I am as I can now watch MTV Hits! (They're as mad about pop as you are) Monday 17th December So it's been a few days since the install... caring friends and colleagues have been asking me if it's gone wrong yet... is it still working, etc.. and I have to report that it's all still working ok! Nothing has gone wrong yet! Blimey. MTV Hits looks pretty damn good on my widescreen telly. Especially when that Kylie video comes on. You know the one I mean. Tuesday 18th December I've just realised today that Sky Sports 1 is an extra 'bonus' channel that I have to subscribe to additionally. This means that I'm going to have to phone them up to get it added... oh no!! Another call to them due then. I think I'll do it when I've got a spare hour or two, i.e. - not in the run up to Christmas.
Getting a broadband internet connection installed in my new flat 18th January 2002 Well this is exciting, isn't it? "The Internet, but ten times faster" spouts the promotional material, as well as the "BlueYonder" website, which is the commercial name that Telewest are giving to their broadband internet service. So I decide to do it.. I'm going broadband. I want 50Kb/second download as opposed to 4Kb which is what I get out of my current modem. So I make the call... and they answer it within three rings! What's more, I'm not in a queue, I'm through to someone who wants to help me straight away, and a few minutes later I'm all done, and I have an installation date of Wednesday 30th January. The installation is costing me £50, as then as I'm an existing Telewest customer with their TV service, the monthly subscription is £25 per month instead of the normal £33. They check my PC spec to make sure that it's up to scratch (Processor, memory, disk space and OS) - and all is ok... What I'm going to do though is build a completely clean PC with nothing else on it, partly in case anything goes wrong, and partly because if once it's running I get hacked before I install any firewall software on it, then there's going to be no important data on their. And that's it... updates to follow, most likely on the 30th January! 30th January 2002 10:00 - So here we go. Here I sit and wait... my new PC is primed and ready to go as I sit and wait... 11:15 - Still no sign! 12:22 - Hmmm. Ok. Getting a bit bored now, but they'll still got until 2pm before I get twitchy. 12:45 - The doorbell rings! Is it Telewest? No! It's the chap that's come to have a look at my water supply. (Separate problem in the flat this week.. No hot water in the kitchen and having to manual refill my toilet each time, trust me - you don't want me to go into details) 13:36 - C'mon guys ... You can do it ... can't you? 24 minutes for you to keep what reputation you have left intact. Plumber still here. 14:00 - Time up! Still no sign. How long do I give them before I call up? Plumbers gone off to get some part though. 14:12 - Twelve minutes. It would have been 10, but I was making a cup of tea. So I call them up. They answer quite quickly actually and the person puts me on hold whilst she checks with "Ops". A moment later she comes back and tells me that the guy is en route, but he's just running behind and should be "about half an hour". So I'll give them until what.. 3pm? We'll see...
So he says there's not much left that he can do, but be patient and it will soon come on line when my address gets registered. Ok.. Here I sit and wait then. Oh, and my hot water still isn't working. He's go to come back another day. Think i'll just give up today on trying to get things accomplished. 16:40 - I've been down the shops and bought some groceries... I get back and! Nope! still a flashing green light, so I go to the toilet and.. 16:43 - I come out of the bathroom and note the 'Online' light is on! Cool! Hey it's working! Is it? I try a webpage... No joy. I run up WinIPcfg and it doesn't have a 80.x.x.x address I'm expecting. This is infuriating. So I reboot my machine (When all else fails, turn everything off and back on again), and to my amazement - it works! I don't think I did actually need to reboot the machine. I just think that it came good during the moment that I rebooted. I now have an IP address of 80.x.x.x that I'm expecting... and it works! It's fast! I nip onto bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ to check the speed of my throughput, and get a healthy 63Kb/second which is rated by them as 'Fantastic' !
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Also,
it would appear that they're no longer called just "Telewest",
but are now in fact "Telewest Broadband". Why? Well, to quote
their glossy literature:
This
is the van - note no 'Telewest' logo on the side. It would appear that
they've also decided to park on the gravel drive without checking that
they might be blocking anyone else by doing so.
it's
already been done many years ago, and they find under the balcony of my
front window a whole run of cables, one which they tap off and channel
into my living room.
So
they're finished, it's working! I can't believe it... their weren't actually
that many major hitches. I even remembered to ask them to tell me what
my PIN is so that I can access TV-on-demand features (pay per view) in
the future.
The
cheap grey crappy plastic and mass manufactured box is still in use...
it looks a bit dull compared to my new sexy silver TV and DVD player...
but I suppose I should be grateful that I have TV at all! Even more impressively,
the LED seems firmly attached to the unit this time - it doesn't wobble
when you press the buttons on the front of the box. Most impressive (!)
14:50
- Here's here! Ok. Another unmarked van. Surprised that they
still haven't blasted their 'Telewest Broadband' logo all over their fleet
of vans yet. He's on his mobile phone though - I think his boss, and whilst
I make him a coffee I overhear a conversation about how he's been stitched
up today as he was meant to have some help and finish all his jobs by
2pm, but instead he's been working all by himself today.
15:15
- Ok, so he's got it all wired in and plugged up. They put a splitter
on my existing TV cable feed and run a length up to the cable modem which
you get. He takes a note of my MAC address on my network card and sends
it off on his mobile-phone-messenger type gadget back to his base. They
have to register your cards MAC address on their system before the cable
modem will be assigned an IP address.
15:45
- Ha. I knew something would go wrong. It would appear that
his people back at base have inputted my MAC address into their system,
but the automated system which updates that neatly into the master database
for them is currently not working. The result? My cable modem has
a 'Online' green light that flashing rather than being permanently on.
AGH! Back to the flashing green light syndrome (See my problems with their
interactive service if you're not familiar with this).
This
is what a Telewest Broadband "Digibox" looks like.