A long, long time ago - almost three years (if I were a goldfish I'd be dead!), I got connected to the net at home. Being all naive I was on a free ISP, which was pay per minute and yep I did rack up some pretty horrific phone bills (were I psychic I'd probably be able to read a lot of you saying 'oh yeah been there!'). After a few stomach churning months spent checking the phone bill every few days (I seriously think I was single handedly funding the company), I noticed BTinternet Surftime, for a montly fee you can chat online from 6pm - 8am mon - thurs & all weekends without call charges. (For anyone who doesn't know - BT, which stands for British Telecom is the largest telecommunications company in the UK, and until a few years ago the ONLY telecommunications company in the UK). YAY! thinks me, where's the dotted line? So I trundled along for a few months content that the only call charges I was ringing up were during the odd times I was on during the day.

Then I stumbled across BTinternet Anytime - all day any day for a monthly fee. Well I hmm'd and ha'd for a bit, but they increased the price of surftime (probably to encourage us onto Anytime) and I figured that even though my brother was at university if he could be online during the day, he wouldn't be hogging it at night (well that didn't exactly run to plan but the logic was sound and it was cheaper than getting a hitman). So I opted for Anytime....which ran fine for a few months, but I was shifted (if you do not download this dialler you will no longer be able to connect to the internet) to the infamous (uh well infamous to BT users anyways) '004' number, the heavy users number and I had nothing but problems. Recently you may have seen my cursing at, frowning at, shouting out, jumping up and down in a frustrated rage at my connection.....They try to say the problem is at my end...(yes of course it is, thats why when I dial the number using the telephone I get 'this number is busy', 'this number is not accepting calls'...)

Well that isn't the whole of the Anytime Saga. Remember how I said All Day Every Day? Well this translated to 16 hours in a rolling 24 hour period. A couple of months ago this became 12 hours in a rolling 24 hour period. Starting from November it becomes 150 hours a month (which works out around 5 hours per day), and nope there isn't a reduction in price. This apparently affects 'only' 5% of their customers (which is around 42,00 people - of which I would probably be one). So that, plus my annoyingly dodgy connection, made me decide to bite the bullet and order broadband, from BT(now openworld not internet), no I don't have gullible idiot scrawled on my forehead thank you very much.

So, I looked round their homepage, found where to order online and did so. Apparently it takes a fortnight, though you should hear if your line has passed the line check within a week (which I was worried about). So I waited, and heard nothing, Hmmmmm I thought, and got a contact number. Apparently my order hadn't gone through...NARGH! A normal person would have decided enough is enough, but no not me! I ordered via the telephone and spoke to an exceedingly nice girlie who took my order and asked me to check if I had a USB port - HAH! that was a whole HooHa and I wasn't 100% sure till I fitted the cable into the port. My start date was October 22nd.

Took a half day at work (sad, very sad Kathryn), even got up early to get it installed (something I try to avoid). Well it was worth it! I can download episodes of shows I probably wouldn't get to see till next year. When I open a page it loads almost immediately, it's AMAZING and this is just the first week!! The only thing I'm complaining about now is other users on Kazaa!

Long live Broadband! *does a dance and everything*

The very Speedy
Kathryn