It’s typical that Mac users would migrate back to BT when the trend is in the reverse direction. After all, we already proved our trend-bucking tendencies by taking the left hand path in the first place. As far as we are concerned, windows are things to look through, not curse and swear at or catch dread diseases from. In fact, back in the early 1990’s we even willingly installed software that made our Macs sniff and sneeze as if infected.

As long-term ‘Net users who embraced broadband when it was in reality a less narrow band, this is not the first time we’ve changed suppliers. Moving ISP’s is easy as long as important sites are hosted elsewhere. Then there can be nothing held to ransom. This time we are changing our telecoms supplier too – on one of our lines because the other has always been BT, who are in any case responsible for the wires delivering telecoms to our office. The advantage of keeping two real (ie. not VOIP) telephone numbers being that no MAC number is needed to make the change. The new broadband service is installed on one line while at the same time the other is still running the old supplier’s broadband. Once everything is completed, the old supply can be terminated…errr…hopefully.

Experience in the past has shown that stopping broadband service is not as easy as it sounds. As long as the minimum contract time has elapsed it should be a case of informing the supplier that you no longer want their service. Except nowadays, just getting through to the supplier can be a case of spending hours of time on the telephone line and seething when another bill arrives. One time we were even ripped-off by a company claiming to supply a Business Service which was anything but. We paid to get out of that contract. Hopefully Bulldog, our latest old supplier, has got the message and will refund the money “stolen” from my card.

When ringing around potential suppliers, it was extremely refreshing to find there are still companies who don’t operate monolithic call centres but have a local office with real people who answer the phone immediately and even offer to visit to sort things out. Score a million for BT. Then there are ISP’s who also supply something that is now euphemistically termed customer service except in their case it really is. Plus they are cheaper than BT even though they supply a BT wholesale service. Score a zillion for Aquiss, our new ISP.

Finally, how is it possible that the same telephone exchange can send the same information down the same wires and run many times faster than before? Our shift to Bulldog had been when they offered “up to” 8MB service and had put their own boxes at the exchange. The best we got was 2.1MBps down and 400Kbps up. Shifting to BT increased that to 5.5MB and 700kbps. Bulldog always told we were too far from the exchange and it was noise on the line, the same line BT manage to squeeze a lot more speed out of with no difficulty. The only down side is that Bulldog’s phone service gives lots of freebees, such as call divert, which BT want to charge extra for. I suppose someone has to pay for all the local offices, it’s just that they make you feel that you are personally responsible for their profits.

J. G. Ballard was nearly right when he said: “Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It’s going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.” Except he should have said: Reality is no longer the stuff of commercial broadband suppliers who get nasty and inside your head.”

T. S. Elliot put it even better: “If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms… you must accept the terms IT offers you.”