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Wednesday 16 February 2011

TV catch up - it must be me.

So far, nigh on 2 hrs have been spent, including lighting the fire and washing up (ish), whilst iplayer found itself...Been away 9 days, so I thought I'd watch a TV soap and chill. I can tell you what happened in January i.e. when I last watched it on terrestial TV, but beyond that....nowt.

This blog post can be read at 5tth.blogspot.com



I've not seen 15 mins of TV yet due to buffering. And you want to tell me that my internal wiring is dodgy, (I removed my face plate such a long time ago and hacked my wires in - search on 'carpet' for photos). Or mebbe it's my laptop. Or sproglet's. Or my PCs and Minimac - probably all of them, eh? 6 digitally connected devices, plus 2 phones, won't let me view even 15 mins of uninterrupted soap.

My Apple Tv, over a wired connection...that doesn't work either. Despite my best efforts of playing dumb to see if it was just me. Nope, when you break it down, it's pretty darned simple - you have nothing that anyone elsewhere in the world would call 21st century connectivity. Even in the 1980s, this would not have counted.

But apparently I know sweet nothing about broadband, or computers, or punch cards, or Fortran, or Acorn Atoms, or what the Net could be used for, or how the tech works, or ...well, anything about broadband, compared to a county councillor who gets his secretary to print out his emails as computers are too new fangled.

If Big Society keeps accusing me of lying, then what are we aiming for? The 82 year old that Libby took a photo of on Saturday at Warcop Exchange. Is Pat who you want to connect? Or are you going to finally let me, with all my ideas, and all those like me, connect? Because, do you know what, I have absolutely no chance over this unbelievably corroded piece of copper you try to tell me is sufficient for my needs;

However many openretch engineers you stick between me and the exchange over the coming months, however much of MY money, whether from my BBC licence fee or my income tax, you spend.....

this is not IT.


4 comments:

chris said...

We have been saying this for so long...
I wonder if it is that councillors are stupid, or corrupt or lazy or ignorant? or just plain hyped up by telcos with multimillion pound advertising budgets?

I think the latter. With a tad of laziness chucked in. And a bit of fear.

The vast majority of people I talk to, either rural or urban moan like hell about their connection. They can't all be wrong.

Many have jumped through hoops with faceplates, engineer visits etc. Every engineer I have talked to is disheartened, because they take the flak from the customers. They know the infrastructure can't deliver a fit for purpose connection any more.

And the engineers also know that cabinets won't either. Maybe the councillors should talk to the engineers? The openreach ones. If they did then pretty soon they would start to understand all your blogposts. It has all gone over their heads or under county hall carpets up to now hun.

chris said...

by 'fit for purpose anymore' I mean dial up was fit for purpose in the early days when only a handfull used it and only for text.

A connection fit for purpose these days needs to be symmetrical, ubiquitous, as fast as needed, capable of quadplay and affordable. Only fibre can deliver this, or fiwipie in the interim. No copper is included in this recipe except as a garnish - a couple of inches inside the home on CPE.
(Client Premise Equipment)

Somerset said...

CPE - Customer Premises Equipment.

Anonymous said...

@Cybersavvy

The future is heading your way as rapidly as you want to help it happen.

The song remains the same and does not discriminate be you a hill farmer or a broadband campaigner.

Get yourself and your community together and let's get the job done.