Hector's House

I don't think the pricing is strictly BT's fault - I'm sure if they had their way, adsl2+ would be much more expensive. I Blame Richard Branson - cable networks only pick the ripest low-hanging fruit. Customers outside town centres just don't register for them, but BT has to compete so those beyond the reach of higher speeds get left behind more & more as there is no incentive to upgrade them.

I'd guess at a few folk taking the pi$$ & making a living out of it, ruining it for everyone else? That's usually how these things go. eBay, for example.

Have you spoken to the CAB? I think I am right in saying that if you pay what you agreed, then they cannot chase you for the difference with bullying tactics like that, and would have to prove that similar jobs did actually cost more. A salesman misquoting is their problem, not yours, unless the fitters encountered more work than was expected. If they have no record of the "low" quote (you don't say what it was), how come they came and did the job in the first place? Something amiss there... maybe a disgruntled salesman? Or maybe you misheard - the problem with phone quotes. No excuse for them not to have followed up with at least a confirming email. But this is armchair legal advice, so please ask the CAB!

Ah, but if you read up on what adblockers can actually do, it isn't always block ads! It apparently depends on how intimately the ad placement is in the page programming.. so often you see a blank space but the ad is still loaded. Great, huh?

Quite often I have similar issues getting Shetlink to respond - I believe that a lot of the problems are down to the adverts. Sometimes the main part of the page will appear, but cannot be clicked on until the side or top advert has finished loading - which on occasions seems to stall. Add to that the times when I get the error page littered with SQL gibberish and it makes Shetlink a very frustrating experience.

Or is it au revoir?

^ just a dig about the thread title But it is really good to see BT getting on with some upgrading, albeit begrudgingly. The stability is something that affects every user, and one day - just maybe - the rest of the exchanges will be brought up to speed.

And that's a "problem"? Boastfulness is not an attractive quality.. mind you nor is envy

I wonder how much commercial waste goes into these skips

That sounds like a load of pish from him and Sky - what percentage of housing in Shetland is wooden? They must have an attachment method that is suitable, surely? That said, the dishes they use are so thinly coated that they corrode to dust inside 2 years. I got a much better one from Islesat, rock solid and guaranteed for 10 years. You get what you pay for...

Yes yes, we're all very happy for you AT Jealous? Who, me? What puzzles me about the broadband industry as a whole is why only now are upload speed increasing - and even then only doubling to .75Mb. If I remember rightly 350kb was the standard upload set when adsl was rolled out, which is now a relatively long time ago. I considered using web-based storage for my digital photos some time ago, but the upload time for full-res images was a joke. Does anyone know why Bt-based adsl is so restricted? It is one thing that makes moving to a cabled area more attractive. I wonder how long it will be before properties outside the "superfast" catchment areas will be unsaleable

Have you actually saved the word document on your pc? If so, whatever email service you use will have an "attach file" button which will bring up a box in which you can navigate to where you saved the file. If you don't need to send the actual Word file but just the text (i.e. losing most of the Word formatting) then as Urabug says just copy from the Word document onto the text area of your email.

Have just missed 2 minutes of Countryfile to see what all the fuss about this was. Jeez - is this what BBC programming has come to? Do these people get funded, or are they just doing it out of desperation to get on tv?

Ah, that's where us mere mortals fall by the wayside

Mindful of the thread, I guess it is an iSpammer The profile is a giveaway. Must be one of the new breed of smart (ho ho) spammers who copy previous entries to try to appear involved so that their real spamming messages will seem to be more genuine. Certainly a more intelligent approach than using pidgin english!

It apparently can take up to 10 days to settle. As for everyone else who lives beyond the reach of the Lerwick upgrade, the real improvement is stability with the new fibre connection. From the day it went live, I haven't had a single dip in speed (a solid 1.2Mb woohoo!) or any disconnects as used to happen almost daily with the microwave link. It just goes to show how flaky the service was, and that BT's equipment had no idea where the problem lay (or it did and they simply lied to save face). The sudden lack of activity on this thread is testament to this. Either that, or I am the only one who can still connect to Shetlink

Well, I think with 6.9Mb download and 1.09Mb upload, most people will suggest "be thankful and stop whingeing" You say Plusnet only moved you over a few days ago. Have you actually followed their advice of giving the system time to learn to stabilise your line?

Unfortunately, the thread is preaching to the converted - I would reckon that nearly all the folk who use the classifieds do so without coming anywhere near the forums as they have perfectly full lives to live in the real world. Oh. Hang on... why am I posting here?

which I believe is a fudge on their part to reduce costs - the contract is between you and the retailer. That is the law. It may end up being less hassle all round to deal direct with the manufacturer (doubt you'd get your phone costs to malaysia or korea refunded though!), but you can often get a reluctant customer service dept. to buck up their ideas by dropping "trading standards" into the conversation. If in doubt as to getting proper recourse, I'd suggest doing a little research on the moneysavingexpert website where there's more "rights" advice than you could shake a very mucky stick at

Isn't it only the Lerwick exchange that is getting the upgrade? Only good thing for everyone else is that the new link has done away with the microwave fade problems.

Never heard of them - a covers band, perchance?

Many moons ago when I was living way down south, the Manager of my local Sainsburys got laid out by a frustrated customer when they ran out of sprouts, so it does happen. Season of goodwill, eh?

Which reminds me of their pricing structure for "Market 1" areas like Shetland where they have no competition... http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/products/low_cost_areas.shtml Cynical or what

I was going to follow that up by suggesting that many of the regular posters (especially those who are involved with, for example, local government ) could do worse than take some tips from the Plain English Society - however when I tried to view their website http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/ I got the response "Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in /homepages/45/d190934960/htdocs/plugins/system/noixacl.php on line 22" Oh, the irony!

BET? http://www.samknows.com/broadband/news/1mb-on-a-12km-line-bt-says-you-can-bet-on-it-882.html 3 years on, and... Presumably dropped due to funding of newer technologies for the easier-to-upgrade areas. Those on the fringes get left behind until a major overhaul of the infrastructure is necessary. Bah! I remember there were plans to cut prices for those who weren't able to get the new services, but that seems to have been quietly shelved. Again, bah! Just out of curiosity, is the 2+ service planned to be extended to other exchanges, and does it provide a leap in upload speed, which hasn't changed (for home users at least) for some years?