Thursday, May 17, 2012

My broadband is poorly

We have developed an intermittent fault on our phone line here in Wales and it’s been  slowing down our broadband speed to a crawl much of the time. I’m afraid this means that you are all writing your wonderful posts faster than I can get online to read them, for which I apologise. Photos are taking an age to load and YouTube is a complete no-no. Sigh….

The engineers are visiting us tomorrow to see if they can track down the fault, but with so much line to examine between us and the exchange it could take some time. It’s one of the few downsides to living high in the Welsh hills. But I never despair and I WILL be back. J

33 comments:

  1. What a pain!
    I used to dread problems with the 'phone lines in France as I could resign myself to over a week's wait.
    Fingers crossed for you.

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    1. You've said it, Fly. It was happening before we went to Scotland but seemed to improve, but is now back in full force. We await tomorrow with interest.....

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  2. oh sympathies!! Isn't it horrid when technology, for whatever reason, doesn't do what you want?

    Fingers crossed they get it sorted soon. The only time we had a problem here they came ultra fast [within 12 hrs -- this is France] and checked the whole line from our house back down to the village. Fault was somewhere 1/2 way and the chap drove back to report to us what was wrong [not that we are techie enough to be interested :-)] and that it had been fixed. This was followed by a phone call to affirm that all was as it should be. Must say we were dead impressed!

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    1. Sympathy very welcome. I think we've become so spoiled over the years that i feel like a toddler whose toy has been taken away against her will. :-) Let's hope BT can match French standards. but I have my doubts. :-(

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    2. They must have had an "off day" when they sorted us out as I suspect their normal service, like BTs, is wildly different.

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    3. In that case I sincerely hope BT has an off day tomorrow. :-)

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  3. Ha. All I've been posting lately is pics and YouTube links.

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    1. So it's all your fault is it, EF? I'm afraid I've just been scrolling as fast as I could past your posts in the reader, hence my silence....

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  4. My little corner of the world acquired broadband just a couple of years ago. I understand the frustration. Don't worry. Just enjoy your time in Wales and take pictures to show us later.

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    1. Thanks, Rosaria. We've had it for ages, but it's become noticeably worse in our bit of Wales in recent years, presumably because of increasing contention on the long line to the exchange. Ban TV on demand and streaming films, says I!

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  5. Perpetua...I feel your pain!! As you know from my blog, I have lived this particular nightmare quite recently. Hope you can get things sorted out. Would you like me to ring my cavalry? They come in threes and will practically rewire your house! ;-)

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    1. A kind offer, CB, and much appreciated. Unfortunately BT Openreach will only take responsibility for the line to the house as we're with TalkTalk. If the fault turns out to be within the house BT will charge us £99 and leave us to sort it out ourselves. Sigh....

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  6. Hope you soon get it sorted soon, must be very annoying. I do not know why ours is alright, we live high up and are not particularly on the route to anywhere. I think perhaps I should thank my lucky stars. May be we have a BT 'big wig' living nearby!

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    1. Thanks, Rosemary, I hope so too. It's particularly annoying because it's intermittent. Sometimes the phone line crackles and broadband is almost non-existent, but other times it all works fine. I'm just hoping that it will be at its worst when the engineers come tomorrow so that they can locate and fix the problem. Fingers crossed....

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  8. So frustrating.... such annoyances always make me wonder how on earth we managed before the internet. Power cuts can actually be quite liberating too. Hope it gets sorted soon though. J.

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    1. Thanks, Janice. I feel the same - such a miracle when we come to think of it and yet we take it for granted until it misbehaves or isn't there at all. Heyho, I think I'll settle down in front of New Tricks this evening and get on with some knitting. :-)

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  9. Hello Perpetua;
    You really do have our sympathy but appear wonderfully philosophical about the whole thing. We trust that normal service will be restored to you in the first possible instance.

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    1. Thanks, Jane and Lance. If one chooses to live in an old house in a remote place, one learns early on to be philosophical about things not working properly. :-) At the moment text is loading well, but large photos and other bandwidth-greedy applications are tantalisingly out of reach.

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  10. Urg. I also have this problem Perpetua, except that it is my computer overheating and I can only use it in 15-30 minute increments. It took me three days to write my last post because of this. :) Hopefully, the guys will get your connection fixed quickly.

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    1. I sympthise, Rubye. We love and hate our computers in equal measure, depending on whether they're doing their job properly. I'm hoping it all gets sorted out tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath....

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  11. We're having the same problem here too. Some nights it's just easier to turn the blooming thing off altogether.

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    1. It's teeth-grindingly frustrating, isn't it, Molly? I keep reading about how the government is pouring money into improving broadband speeds, but it seems to me that none of it trickles down to the rural areas. Sigh...

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  12. Enjoyed your sense of humor with the cartoon, Perpetua, and sympathize with your frustration. We had a similar problem some months ago. Everything and anything, from pictures to emails to blogging was taking soooo long. The problem was, we could actually see the wire that was hanging causing the interference. Our service just couldn't seem to get their act together. For a company whose business is communication, they just couldn't seem to communicate to their workers what the problem was. One day, a fellow was out at the road working on something else. Tom went out to point out the problem and tada, done in 15 minutes. Sigh. That was after several weeks of woe. I hope yours resolve sooner than that.

    I'll be here waiting for your wonderful words and pictures soon. Penny

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    1. I love the Andertoons cartoons, Penny and have used them several times. You have to laugh about these everyday frustrations or you'd cry or start to throw things. :-) I'm now really pleased I simplified my blog template, as the new mimimalist one loads much faster than the picture window I had before. At the moment there are blogs I daren't even visit because they have such large photos.
      I'm crossing everything in the hope it will all be back to normal tomorrow.

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  13. Sending positive thoughts your way for a speedy resolution to your problem. I guess we are all so used to computers firing on all cylinders that when there's a hiccup it frustrates us beyond measure. But, hey, good excuse to read all those books eh?

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    1. Thanks, Astrid. The perversity of all inanimate objects has of course dictated that today there is no wind and therefore little crackle on the line and broadband is OK. When it's windy the line is terrible. I'm just hooping this doesn't mean they can't track down the fault. Sigh.... Books it is then.:-)

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  14. I did think, fleetingly, that we could all send you our postal addresses and we could keep in contact that way until the problems is fixed...:-)

    On reflection, better we have patience and hope your bandwidth improves soon.

    Annie
    xxx

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    1. LOL, Annie! DH would have a fit at the thought of all those stamps. Have you SEEN the price of postage over here since the latest huge price rise? I think your second suggestion better be the one....

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  15. I read about the UK postage rise recently!! Hope it doesnt go up as much in Gibraltar :(

    anyway, time off the internet is good :) we all need a break so take the positive aspect out of it.

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    1. A 30% rise as part of the preparation for selling off much of Royal Rail, roughseas. Sigh... DH and I bought all our stamps for next Christmas before prices went up.

      Well, I had all morning off the internet as the engineer struggled to find the fault, but he did, bless him. :-)

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  16. We had the slower than a snail problem for several weeks. We called someone out and our download time was ridiculously slow- videos would buffer for ages. He couldn't do anything though and suggested we contact our internet provider- they were useless and said it might be a faulty connnection (our problem!) We were about to change provider and then it suddenly resolved itself! Good luck!

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    1. Isn't it apain, Sue? Ours had been getting worse for months, but we could never get the faults people at BT to admit there was a problem. Finally DH managed to get them to send someone out, with the threat of its costing us a £99 call-out charge if no fault could be found on the line itself. Thankfully, there was a fault - well down the line - and everything is working beautifully now. :-)

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