Our Opinion June 2001

Our Opinion Page for June 2001

June 2001 Finally dumped BT Internet and dial up networking, engaged tones, cut offs and general frustration and temporary madness. I don't mind dialing in and using a 56 Kb modem if you are not paying for the call.

Last month I got up on my high horse to BT Internet about the crap service that they offer. The most annoying bit being cut off every two hours no matter what I was doing. BT's answer is that you can dial straight back in again. Some nights it took over fifty attempts to get reconnected. When you are being cut off every two hours it gets rather frustrating and annoying. BT advertise that they are signing up some 20 000 new subscribers a week, but they could not even satisfy this one customer. They didn't say how many customers they have lost every week due to poor service. I complained to them all the time about being cut off and kept asking them to remove the block on my account, but they didn't even answer. After several weeks of emailing them I stayed connected for nearly sixteen hours. There were several lesser connect times in between but in general I was allowed to stay connected for about sixteen hours. This was great and I could live with it. It lasted for several weeks, then out of the blue it started again. There was also problems with BT Internet's DNS servers. I changed the DNS addresses in dial up networking and reconnected. It worked until I got cut off again sixteen hours later. This went on for about a week, then DNS stopped working all together and shortly after I couldn't connect at all for about twenty hours. BT Internet explained that they were having difficulty with their dial in platform. Later it became their e-mail, FTP and web platforms. After several more weeks of all this I canceled BT Internet and my BT phone lines and installed cable.

I later heard on the news, that BT had forgotten to reregister some or parts of its domain names after updating and upgrading their services.

Does nobody sign visitor books any more ? I know I don't when I visit other sites on the world wide web. Not many of you have signed our visitor book. If I do not here any response on the matter I am going to remove it from the site.

I am also considering changing the navigation because some visitors are getting lost when they return and try to locate a page they have already been to but forgot to bookmark. If any readers have suggestions regarding site navigation please e-mail the webmaster.

Download Junkie

A friend of mine recently installed a broadband Internet connection at home. I sent him several e-mail's but he didn't reply. The next time I saw him and asked about it he said he had been too busy to reply. Doing what I asked. Downloading stuff off the Internet. My high speed connection is great. I have downloaded almost 20 GB already in three days. What an addict. Now he needs another hard drive.

I recently read whilst online that all e-mail sent in the UK, Europe and America is being read in the name of national security. Although I find it hard to believe that each e-mail is actually being read it may be possible to scan every one for certain key words. Governments have been doing it for years. The best thing any one wishing to send an e-mail should do is obtain some form of encryption. Sending an unencrypted e-mail is like sending a letter without a envelope.

July's Opinion

May's Opinion