The Horror Of British Telecom

MBCook writes "'Someone, raised amidst the elegant lattice of custom and tradition that serves as the foundation of English society, came up with a very elegant, very British, solution to broadband policy here. And it absolutely, positively sucks.' So starts an article by Mark Hachman over at ExtremeTech chronicling his odyssey to get broadband in his new flat."

Comments

Let's review...

[MaestroSartori]

"...let's review the procedure for obtaining broadband in the U.S. Step #1: Call up your cable or DSL provider, walk through the options, and decide what you want. Step #2: Receive and install the modem, or have an installer do it for you. Step #3: There is no Step #3!"

So, let's review the procedure for obtaining broadband in the UK:

Step #1: Call up BT, to make sure you have a line capable of receiving broadband. (Apparently everyone in the US can receive a broadband connection. That's what this guy says, anyway!)

Step #2: l up your cable or DSL provider, walk through the options, and decide what you want.

Step #3: Receive and install the modem, or have an installer do it for you.

Step #4: There is no Step 4! Unless there's a problem, in which case the useless bureaucracy of BT kicks in!

Seriously though, this guy's problem with "The Horror of BT" is just him making a lot of noise about nothing. There's plenty of room for more legitimate gripes about how BT run things - for instance, if you have a fault with a line, their engineers will only come out between 9am-5pm Mon-Fri. Absolutely useless for 99% of the working population! :/

Re:Poor article

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

well...I've never had a phone line fault...

Besides the whole BT system sounds not so much quaint as uselessly fucked up. Why are you choosing to read criticism of such an assbackwards system as xenophobia against the brittish? If he wanted to do that, he could have just refered to the people he dealt with at the various isp's as being limp-wristed tea-sucking limeys--but he didnt. In fact there were no negative imprecations against britain at all apart from what he saw as the rather neolitic broadband situation, which seemed pretty well justified. In fact he started out by making sure that it was understood that he happened to like the place and that his was not a typical UglyAmerican tirade against a foreign country for not being america.
I think you're reaching a bit
chill