It has been four weeks since broadband last worked in the house.<\/p>\n
I’m coping, just about; the shakes and other withdrawal symptoms have almost gone.<\/p>\n
There hasn’t been a mobile alternative for us; getting a 3G dongle would have been a complete waste of money. We live in a corner of Oxfordshire where we can’t even guarantee (and frequently don’t get) a consistent 1G signal, so what would be the point of spending cash on a 3G connection?<\/p>\n
Exactly. No point at all.<\/p>\n
For example, I’m writing this at 6.20pm on Sunday evening and, just for the record, during the last four hours we have had approximately 20 minutes of 1G coverage from Vodafone, and no 3G coverage at all.<\/p>\n
Which is stunning, obv.<\/p>\n
Here’s a note to consider.<\/p>\n
We live in the parliamentary constituency of our Prime Minister, David Cameron.<\/p>\n
Yet two of the UK’s biggest telecommunications providers – BT and Vodafone – give really crap service in these parts.<\/p>\n
I can’t help wondering if this is a political V-sign to Mr Cameron?<\/p>\n
Anyway, political (or maybe not) messages aside, through the cunning use of carefully considered alternative channels, we have learned to cope with our temporary(?) brownout.<\/p>\n
The big challenges have been keeping up with internet banking and, obviously, getting the weekly podcast out on to its server, from where iTunes (and the other distributors) can pick up the show and deliver it to our listeners.<\/p>\n
As far as Email, Twitter and Reader traffic go, we’ve almost kept up, through the intermittent access that our Nexus One handsets have periodically been granted, by Vodafone’s shockingly patchy mobile phone service.<\/p>\n
The tasks that have been impossible in the last few weeks, given Vodafone’s rubbish coverage, have been things such as writing the website for the show, and sending the audio file to the server, from where iTunes, and the other feed distributors, pick up the show and deliver it to our listeners.<\/p>\n
On a practical level, Soph and I (and Pigeon Girl, when she joined us in the studio) have still been recording the show on Friday evenings. We have enjoyed much random conversation and banter, huge amounts of mirth and top tuneage (and hope you’ve enjoyed it too!), during our weekend laughathons.<\/p>\n
On Saturday mornings I have been going to the local library, where I’d use a public internet terminal to type up the notes, write the website and save it as draft.<\/p>\n
Once I had done that, I’d move to Hacketts, a local restaurant\/coffee shop\/bar with my laptop, where I’d use their WiFi to send the file to the server (apart from the first week of being internetless, where I drove in to Oxford and stole some of Mike and Jenny’s broadband), attach the file to the draft notes and publish the podcast to the internet.<\/p>\n
We had to use Hackett’s WiFi, because Oxfordshire Libraries’ public access internet terminals don’t permit FTP transactions.<\/p>\n
So yep, through being agile in our approach and by using a range of alternatives, we’ve continued to keep our heads afloat, just about.<\/p>\n
The things that haven’t been achieved over the last few weeks include sorting through the music submissions to the show from bands\/artists, holding interviews with guests, dealing with the staggering amount of emails the show gets, and processing through the action from the various music-related websites that awaits us at MySpace (etc).<\/p>\n
This lack of functionality is unfortunate.<\/p>\n
Because of the internet outage we weren’t able to make the interview we had booked with Charlie Sheen. We also weren’t able to retrieve the email from Russell Brand, which was a shame, because he was answering an allegation about the size of his genitalia.<\/p>\n
But as of the time of writing (Sunday evening), we still have no broadband.<\/p>\n
PlusNet have sent us texts and emails telling us that we’ll have full broadband service tomorrow (Monday).<\/p>\n
Me? I’m not holding my breath.<\/p>\n
I’m also not believing a single word Plusnet tell us – not because I believe them to be dishonest! Just because they, like us, are in the hands of BT Wholesale (aka BT Openreach), at the 01993 (Witney) exchange.<\/p>\n
And BT Wholesale\/BT Openreach\u00c2\u00a0have, over the last 12 months, consistently proven themselves to be wholly useless, incompetent and moronic.<\/p>\n
And if you feel I’m being harsh, let’s just see if we get broadband on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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