Isolated and out of touch!

Well the 1mb+ broadband speed yesterday morning was clearly the swan song of our phone line! It lasted all of two hours before it cut out again. So more phone calls to the BT helpline in India, but still no internet. They could not put it right remotely so we would need an engineer.

So just after 9am a very pleasant young man arrived.

No signal - he checked the wire to the house - seemed OK but no signal back to Wortley where the closest relay box is situated. In the end he changed our line for another where they only needed a telephone connection and not broadband. Apparently that was the last line available in the village. Even then it didn't work immediately, though he did manage to persuade the engineers in the exchange to sort it out there and then - so we have broadband again. Thank you Mr Engineer - you were very pleasant and did a fantastic job and it only took three hours of your time. I think it's been worth sticking with BT after all!

Today's blip is of the chaos that resulted from excavating the wires that run behind the worktop and cupboards. I discovered another blip in the system as I tried to put it all back together again, but this one hadn't caused our problems during the last two days.

Oh and the bad news - well our phone-lines into the village are so degraded that they could pack up again at any time. And the Good News? Well BT Infinity (their high speed service) will be available in the village from February/ March. At a cost of course - and these same failing lines will be able to carry this signal? Apparently. Something to do with the physics of the signal that will allow it to bounce over the bad bits! (Is this my child like interpretation, I ask, because I don't understand - maybe some of you do.) No doubt we'll be upgrading as we are committed internet junkies!