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The Saga Continues

We have been with The Phone Co-op for over 5 years now, they provide us with our phone line, calls & broadband. We like their ethics, but as we are constantly having problems - we know the small team of staff quite well!

It's not any of our computers or routers, etc - but problems continue to happen & nobody ever gets to the bottom of it. The Phone Co-op always blame BT (British Telecom - who own all the phone cables) & an engineer comes out, messes about for an hour, says it must be further down the line & so it goes on. Eventually, we stop losing packets (or whatever they are) & we return to our usual slow service, which just about lets us do normal internet surfing, buying, etc... We live in a rural place, but out of the few homes in our hamlet - we are the only family struggling to get a signal. In a quest to save our sanity, we decided to do some of our own investigations - we paid a guy to have a look at all our equipment, just to make sure. He was also convinced that the problem isn't at our end & spoke to The Phone Co-op for us, together they went through various procedures & still they couldn't work it out. We spoke to a local friend, who is also with The Phone Co-op & she lives in an equally rural hamlet - her connection is absolutely fine & always has been! We have now been referred to BT yet again, so we'll wait & see... Unfortunately, they can't come out until next week - what a surprise!

If no-one else around here is experiencing similar problems to us, then what is going on? We live in the oldest house in our hamlet, a Cornish granite house which is over 250 years old - could it be radon? We can't do any online research at the moment, so we might phone the council tomorrow & just see if they can help... For now at least, we are able to look at anything google - which means emails, blog & youtube. Though, it's hit or miss whether we get to reply or comment on anything! Hopefully, it will be resolved soon.


At least it's been warm today, according to our car - 20C! 
This good weather is persuading holiday makers to head this way... It seems like half of the UK are coming down at the weekend & many of them are staying in properties we look after, so we are quite busy now. There will be the constant stream of bed linen to wash & iron, cream teas to purchase & lots of properties to clean. As well as the nosy tourists who love to peer through our windows (probably thinking that the house is derelict), our hamlet will swell with folks staying at the camp site at the top of our lane & the youth hostel across the road. There will be noise from cars & small children screaming outside our bedroom window early in the morning (no idea why, but it happens a lot), families heading down to the beach - eager to see the sea & it will remain this way until October... 

Of course, it's our own fault for living in such a nice place!

Lack of internet has driven us to various free WI-FI establishments...

Feeling obliged to eat while there!
 This is Eden's Coffee & Carrot Cake...

& their Apple Pie & Soya Hot Chocolate...


Hugo waiting patiently for his turn on the laptop...

Sime surfing...

Me being bored...

Me surfing & Sime being his normal sneaky self!

Just hope this will post now...

Fingers crossed!

Kay :)


Comments

Pattypan said…
Oh dear that's not very good. But it is lovely to hear from you even if it is sporadically. You do live in a lovely place I would readily swap. Strange about the internet connection you aren't by any chance in a dip where the signal doesn't get through properly? Its good to be busy even if you do have to put up with the holidaymakers until October.

Take care lovies

Pattypan
xx
Anonymous said…
How frustrating!! We have had a lot of internet connection problems over the years and it always seems to be someone else's fault.
Hope it gets fixed soon.
Anonymous said…
The only solution is to rent both the phone line and the internet connection from the same supplier. Use BT it gives a good reliable service as used by many large companies. The cheapy internet suppliers use cheap unreliable equipment and poorly trained staff
We were with BT years ago & they left us for 2 months without a phone. We live in an area where there's no mobile signal, so it was a nightmare. Sime enquired about going back with them this week, but they can only set up new contracts online, as they don't send out any paperwork...

The Phone Co-op isn't a cheapy company, it's ethical, it's a co-operative - so owned by the customers as well as their staff, who are very good & knowledgeable. It is so nice to deal with the same people all the time, but it's our line - which is owned by BT that is the problem. The Phone Co-op just rent the lines from them & the last engineer who came out said that the cable to our house has been damaged over & over again, but BT are refusing to replace it & so the engineers keep patching it up! I think it's our punishment for leaving them in the first place...

Kay :)

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