Posts by Colin of Rame

Struggling through the Crystal Maze in our hunt for a spare CAT5

Oh fu......

EE squashes Orange UK: France Telecom's been 'destroying it for years'

Re: time to jump ship

"So, one bunch of consumer ignoring cretins is being taken over by another bunch of consumer ignoring cretins? Life goes on in the corporate dogpits."

It could be worse... I am in the middle of moving to TalkTalk Mobile.

You have to be an existing customer of TalkTalk. No probs. Been with them for 9 months.

Get an email asking me to phone an 0845 number to verify credit FOR AN EXISTING CUSTOMER.

Worse, a 1 option IVR system - 'Please enter the number you are calling about'. You could not make it up.

Enter random number beginning with 07 to get through. After 3 drones gave someone my cc details.

Go online to transfer number. What day do you want it. Tuesday would be good I thought.

Tuesday get text - transfer will be done wednesday.

Tuesday night get welcome text and configuration text for Internet and MMS. ALL TO MY OLD HANDSET. Tossers!

Why is there not an option to add morer than 1 FAIL icon?

Sleepy Ofcom glances at Internet of Things, rolls over, takes nap

I think this rubbishing of Ofcom is unjustified.

Their stand on banning the use of 0845 numbers in about 2005/6 was very brave. ( sorry that was Oftel)

One of their recent report into the Telecomms market proved beyond doubt there was no user demand for ADSL to the home without a landline number. Just a coincidence that another report was trying to find away of getting a decent mobile signal to a large proportion of the population. Entirely unconnected.

If they asked my Gran if she had a desire to ditch her landline she would say no.

She has been dead for 60 years and has still got more of a clue than Ofcom.

Then there were 3: Another UK mobile network borged ...

Re: Wrong logic

And you and me paid for most of those cabinets with the Superfast broadband rollout :-(((

Give ALL the EU access to Netflix, says Vince Cable

Vince was probably shafted by Mandelson's 'relationship' with Ms Murdoch when he was trade commisioner. Sky Tv did not want EU single market so mandy obliged

Future imperfect: A UK broadband retrospective

Re: What is the right answer to how to run National Infrastructure?

"So the answer is we have to take Openreach away from BT. This has some merits, and some issues"

Exactly right., We have a private monopoly who cannot see further than the end of their nose with a so called regulator who is full of apologists for BT.

On the face of it LLU was a good idea but badly implemented. In a rural location the economics ruled out any unbundling for years. When Homechoice started unbundling it took Ofcom 6 months to get off their arse and force BT not to delay because BT's paperwork trail was not capable of handing the volume.

SDSL was never implemented in a realistic fashion because of the massive impact it would have on BT leased lines.

Instead of extending IP to the cabinet (ie 21C network) BT will procrastinate until forced to because they need to justify £16.50 line rental for every household regardless of the quality of the 100 pairs of bundled cables even when the consumer ( in the shape of public 100% subsidies) is paying for the infrastructure to the cabinet.

A completely different model is needed for Openreach and Ofcom. Our only hope is for Google to pressure the government :-)

In case I have not mentioned it before, I FEEL the need after being without service for 37 days even though fibre was installed outside my house 6 months previously and not a penny of compensation.

BT bemoans 'misconceived' SUPERFAST broadband regs

Re: This sort of crap

There is a HUGE misunderstanding of Telco pricing....

It's trivially simple: The infrastructure costs are insignificant. If you get the customer to pay for their installation (and they all do, in one way or another) all subsequent revenue is pure profit. That's very close to 100% profit.....

This is getting close to the real problem. Land line cabling is often old crappy and unreliable. If BT were in a truly competetive market they would replace land lines from the fibre cabinets to premises rather than from the exchange which 21C SHOULD have been about. But BT are a monopoly supplier for a high proportion of the country and they want to milk the landline revenue all they can for as long as they can.

The costs of land line infrastructure (£16.50pm) should be tumbling with change from analogue to digital but is is being pushed to the limit by BT with the useless regulator not giving a shit.

The only way out is to have a completely independent supply of infrastructure similar to National Grid.

Then I would not have to pay for PL football I do not want.

Tesco tosses loss-making Blinkbox into TalkTalk's basket

I moved from Phone Coop for Land Line and Freeola for broadband (after 14 years) because I had no phone for 37 days and broadband hardly useable, and neither appeared to want to do anything about it. As TT were the only LLU suppliers at my exchange I did not see how they could do any worse. I have an almost constant 13MB downstream and the only problem I have had, was unable to configure a Sipgate VOIP terminal. That is probably because TT have got ports for this closed, but I cannot be arsed to sort it out. 9 months with TT and cannot fault them.

Brit smut slingers shafted by UK censors' stiff new stance

Re: Normality

Most of British law relies on test cases to prove the law.

Please provide a link and the Reg readership can give you their verdict on your video :-)

TalkTalk wants more FOURPLAY, jumps into bed with Telefónica

Left hand - right hand

I am guessing that there is a bit of a lack of communication here. (Not unusual for a comms company).

I have a Talkmobile mobile.Purchased when I did not have a TalkTalk account. Presumably the sales trolls do not realise they are the same company.

Philae healthier: Proud ESA shows off first comet surface pic

Re: More photos kept back >-(

26kbps link ....

If they are intelligent enough to get a probe on a comet you would have thought they would know better than have a limited UNLIMITED TalkTalk connection :-)

Why Comrade Cameron went all Russell Brand on the UK’s mobile networks

Would UMA help

I would love to be on a network that provides UMA so I can convert my house from a blackspot with my existing WiFi that I am already paying for.

Cost to net work - approx zero ( requires a bit of an interface at their end)

Cost to me - zero, I already pay for my broadband. ( an app on my phone possibly required )

If all networks and handsets supported UMA it would allow a local communities to install wifi hotspots to support mobile handsets in GSM blackspots at very low cost.

Vulturenet could be a realistic option if it piggybacked on one of the major carriers networks like Tesco et all, but in addition allowed Wifi UMA . So who is going to volunteer to run with this .....