[Gllug] OT Internet connection ( Vol 45, Issue 28)

[john gennard]

> John Winters, wrote on Tue, 13 Mar 2007

>>I have been interested in a pure wireless connection provided
>>by now.com but have been unable to find anyone in London who
>>uses this service (it seems, they operate mainly in the Thames
>>Valley area west of London). If my memory is correct, John
>>Winters, who used to regularly attend GLLUG meetings when I was
>>able to and still frequently posts, lives/lived in their area.
> 
> I live in the Thames Valley (Wallingford to be precise) but not apparently
> in their coverage area.  It seems to be quite hard to discover what areas
> they do actually cover.  The process is that you put in a postcode on
> their web site and they say, "No, we don't cover you".

I understand that it is Reading/Oxford plus some areas of London
and that they have more than a dozen more licences yet to be
'rolled out'. My area, they say, is covered.

So far, I've not located a single person here who uses them, and that 
'worries me' for on the surface they offer what seeems ideal for me.
For a 12 month contract everything to set up is free and it's £10 for 
256 kb, £14 for 512kb and £18 for 1Mb.

If you pay a £30 activation fee you can have a monthly contract,
and there's a no risk free trial (modern version! - you pay first
and if you're not happy, you can get your money back!!). I had hoped
to use VOIP with the 1Mb, but the question of latency make me
wonder.

> I remember a service like this in Reading a few years ago (6?) which may
> be related.  That was pretty much a case of line-of-sight from central
> Reading.
> 
> 
>>Does he by any chance know of now.com and whether their service
>>can be used with Linux?
> 
> Pass.
> 
>>Virgin Media perhaps would do - broadband and telephone with the
>>same BT number for £26. However, I've no idea what the service
>>is like and exactly what is actually involved in the 'fair
>>usage policy' (I know what they say, but ??!!).
> 
> AIUI Virgin Media is a re-branding of NTL.  Now it may be that there has
> been a complete re-work of customer services at the same time, but NTL's
> customer service has always been mind-bogglingly bad.  I had to get Oftel
> involved just to get them to process my cancellation of service.  They'd
> ignored all other forms of communication for over 6 months.

I was aware that Virgin now incorporates NTL and TeleWest inter alia.
Again, I've problems, for some say things are now better under Virgin
whilst others say the reverse.

It seems that I may be best advised to go with now.com and a PAYG
mobile - I'll chew things over for a couple of days.

Thanks for your response and thanks to all others who have had
something to say (I didn't expect so much to come out of my question
and frankly I don't understand much of what has been said).

Regards,

John.



-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug