Phone Line Blues

Moving house is a pain in the detail - like wanting to transfer a phone and broadband account. Ideally I'd keep everything the same, but then going to Hull means going to a unique owner of all the lines and hardware.

So to Talk Talk (ex-Tiscali) and I just went round and around operator after operator each asking my number, name, address, date of birth - some seven times in three separate diallings of my own. I dialled them first, and received the information that they can serve the Hull area. I got my first piece of variable cost information. Then I rang Kingston Communications, who were clear and straightforward, and honest (yes I can have another provider, it's just that none of them do it except for business customers as it is not worth their while). Right. So back to Talk Talk, who would do it, and well less than Hull it seemed, though Hull is less than what I pay now. (This raises an interesting question, like why I am paying more now?).

But I had to dial again, thus the third time, and here I went via five people all asking my name etc. and when finally I ended up where I'd been before, the charge jumped to well over £30 a month for the broadband alone - because they don't normally serve the area.

Bye bye and back to Kingston Communications who ran the thing through in a flash and gave me a new number, and no connection charge either. The chap was even self-critical about the charging systems being separate. I will jump from a maximum 1.1 to 12 megabits for receiving broadband via ADSL 2 equipment. The chap was interested in what I had at the moment.

I've since just done a speed test and it is just below and just over 1 megabits.

The new phone number and broadband activates on 1 October for Sutton-on-Hull, and I won't say what it is here, but it won't take a Sherlock Holmes to find it and it will be in the book.